Dear YAM!

Dear YAM!

My Loyal Reader requested that I write this letter, and I intended to do so at the beginning of the week. And then, somehow, I just got myself all sorts of pre-occupied. I was making music (I've spent hours on it this week, without a finished product to throw to this blog), and there were some sporting events to watch on the television (the NCAA basketball final, and Stanley Cup Playoff hockey began this week). Just so much going on.

But now I have a little time (not a lot, mind, because it's actually sunny out today, and I intend to be out in it within the hour) to write you, YAM!, and so I shall.

About a week ago, my Loyal Reader sent me an e-mail that had a link on it. That link was to a new computer game demo. That computer game demo was "Return to Dark Castle." Now, I know that there are only a select few out there that can possibly realize the relevance and importance of those words, so I shall do a little bit of explaining.

When I was a child, we had a Mac computer. I believe it was an Apple IIGS (if memory serves). Anyhow - on that computer, we didn't really have any games. My parents used it for word processing, and I remember my dad making references to some sort of crazy "web" or some such thing that was being developed, where he could get computer programs THROUGH THE TELEPHONE LINES in only a matter of hours for something as big as 200 kilobytes. "Compuserve," he called it. I called it nonsense. Nothing like that could exist.

Anyway. So one day - and I am afraid I don't actually remember the day or the surrounding circumstances - my dad showed up with a GAME for our computer. And that game was called "Dark Castle." It is almost impossible to describe this game to the uninitiated, but I shall try.

The game was about a prince who was going into a castle that was the evil bastion of the Black Knight, who had been lording over a village for years. The prince was armed only with stone (to begin with), that he would throw at enemies (rats and bats infested with the Plague, stiff soldier-knights, and then a cornucopia of stranger baddies). He would run around and jump and battle foes in order to progress through rooms until he could battle the Black Knight.

Now, for that day and age, Dark Castle was amazing. The graphics and effects were relatively advanced, and the gameplay was pretty fluid (from what I remember). But that was not the most amazing part. The amazing part was the SOUNDS. The whole game was made using various sampled sound effects (no music in the original) for every action. There was the sound of a door opening and closing. The squeaks of rats. The flapping wings of bats. Whip sounds. Machine sounds.

But the best sounds were the unexpected ones: when you killed a bat with a rock, it would make a deflating "ping" sound before falling to the ground and making a fart-like "splat." When the prince tripped and fell, he would spin around dizzily while making confused, dizzy "uhuuuhhhuuhhhuhhhh - WHOO!" sounds as he finally came back to it, shook his head around, and got back on track. He would grunt as he jumped or climbed ropes. He would groan when he tried to pick things up and couldn't (because his pockets were too full). And he would triumphantly exclaim "You" every time he picked something up, YAM! Yes - he would exclaim "You."

I don't know why he did that. I don't know what "you" was supposed to mean. Maybe nothing. But those were the sounds of my childhood - the sound effects of Dark Castle, and they remained locked away in the back of my mind for 15 years after I no longer played the game.

Until this week. I downloaded the demo, and I played it. And it was almost EXACTLY the SAME as the original!!! The graphics were just colorized (with slightly-touched-up backgrounds). There was now a musical soundtrack. But everything else looked and - more importantly - SOUNDED like the original! Within a minute of playing, I was thrown back to my childhood, recalling all those memories I thought I had lost.

And, to be honest, it was a bit disconcerting. I can't really explain it. It was TOO familiar. It was like having my body snatched. Or like living 15 years of life only to wake up one day and realize that it was all just a dream, and I had yet to age past 12. THAT crazy. I mean - it really messed with my head.

But it also felt so good. And in that nostalgic joy, I finally understood what "You" really meant. Because playing that game brought back the feeling of "you" to me. The joy of discovery and good fortune. Knowing that I didn't absolutely NEED this game and it's memories back in my life, but knowing that I was also missing something without it. You, YAM! Picking up a bag of stones and feeling it nestle comfortably in my pocket, where I could get to it in times of need. That is what you is about. And that was what playing this game was about.

It really WAS a return for me. A Return to Dark Castle, sure - but also a return to my youth and mildly-sunny days spent indoors in the shadows of a darkened room, playing this game and taking that sunlight for granted. The specific way the sunshine played off the leaves of the birch tree by the window at three in the afternoon . . . It's all right here with me now - and as I feel it all, all I can think to myself is: you.

So thank you, YAM!, for that feeling. For bringing it all back to me and allowing me to reconnect to my littler self. It just feels so you.

Not Taking THIS Sunlight for Granted,
CVT