The Video Game Worlds I’d Love to Live In
A recent daily prompt from kmcd.dev reads as follows:
"If you could live in any video game world, which one would you choose and why?"
Looking back, there are so many video game worlds where I’d love to live. In fact, when I was a kid, there were quite a few where I felt I already did live. The one that comes to mind immediately is the delightful world of Theme Park World. I remember spending countless hours on an old Windows 95 computer in the attic of my parents' home, completely immersed in this game. Even when I wasn’t playing, the game was still alive in my mind. I’d read the little instruction booklet full of hints and tips over and over, perfecting my dream parks in my head, impatiently waiting for my next play session to start.
If I could exist in that world, I’d probably want to be one of the visitor Entertainers, or perhaps the ant-like Advisor, who permanently lived at the bottom edge of your screen like the Clippy Office Assistant.
Another set of video game worlds that defined my childhood were the playgrounds of the GTA series, particularly Vice City and San Andreas. Vice City brings back memories of hanging out in a neighborhood friend’s attic. We’d switch places at the computer, taking turns playing through the story or grinding through the legendary taxi driver missions.
San Andreas has an even deeper meaning to me. It reminds me of my time on GTA Games, which was the largest GTA-related forum in the Netherlands back then. I climbed the community ladder there, eventually becoming a moderator for the general forum Games section. Those days were filled with participating in forum challenges, organizing some of them myself, and working on my graphic design skills by creating all kinds of fancy signatures. And when I wasn’t doing that, I was diving into yet another playthrough of the San Andreas storyline. It surely was an open world playground I never tired of exploring.
If I were to live in the GTA universe, though, I wouldn’t want to be a main protagonist like Tommy Vercetti or CJ. I’d prefer the more quiet life of a random citizen, wandering the world, breathing in the stunning scenery, with just the occasional need to dodge a stray bullet or two.