So today I took Jonah to Dave and Busters, which is basically an arcade on steroids.
He wandered for about 10 minutes before I suggested some games he might want to play.
He won’t actually say, show, or demonstrate that he wants to play ANY of the games. I think he’s afraid of asking, because the answer might be “no.”
So I made a few suggestions.
We played Ski-ball. Virtual bowling. Ball-throwing games.
But after each game he kept running around the arcade like he was looking for something else.
I knew exactly what he wanted. Minecraft Dungeons. He recently started playing this game at home and it is currently one of his “go-to” video games.
I asked him if he wanted to play “Minecraft,” and he immediately ran to the controllers.
So I scanned the game card and he started playing. I’ve never really paid that much attention to this game. You basically walk around killing bad guys with melee or ranged weapons until the bad guys eventually get you, and you have to pay more money to continue.
The game mechanics were a lot like video games I would have played at his age… The old multi-player classics… Final Fight… Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles… The Golden Axe…
Huh.
So after Jonah got to his first dreaded “game over… continue?” screen, I asked if he wanted to keep playing and if I could join him.
Of course he said “yes.”
So I scanned the arcade “game card” again and started playing. It felt so surreal.
Most activities my kids like doing, I mostly enjoy doing with them simply because they enjoy it. But playing video games, specifically games like this, is something I have enjoyed since the days of Pizza Parlor arcades in the 80’s and 90’s.
My role as a parent is supposed to be the one who is responsible. The one who makes the rules. The “grown-up.”
But playing “Minecraft Dungeons” with Jonah put us on equal footing. My character could die just as quickly and easily as his.
And just like that, I was 10 years old again in the Pizza Hut Arcade, with one of my best friends playing one of our favorite video games. It was spring break. We had nowhere else to be…
And we had UNLIMITED quarters.
That was literally the “perfect day” my friends and I would dream about when we used to talk about what we would do if we could do ANYTHING we wanted.
Whenever I’d die, I would rescan the card to keep playing. Whenever Jonah would die, I would rescan the card to keep playing.
I even showed him how to do it so I wouldn’t have the distraction of having to re-start his “game over…continue?” after every time he died.
He even revived MY character for me when I didn’t realize that it was MY character that had died and not his.
I don’t know how many lives we used but it was definitely worth it.
We beat the first boss. We kept going.
“Creeper” after “creeper” died to our swords and arrows. We vanquished ALL our foes until we got to the SECOND boss.
It was at this point, after dying for the umteenth time, when I noticed our credit amount remaining. I didn’t know how many credits this game took, but we did not have many left.
And this boss still had almost full health.
We had to beat this boss. It wasn’t really a question. I had no idea how much time had elapsed since we started playing, but we had certainly put in TOO MUCH of it to turn back now.
I chose to bury the nagging worry at the back of my mind that told me that when my credits ran out, I would only have 30 seconds to find a Dave And Busters machine to refill my game card with more credits, get back, and rescan the card before the dreaded “game over” screen appeared and we would have to start over from the beginning.
It’s a tale as old as video games.
But I would have none of it now. This boss had to go down. We needed a strategy.
I took a “tanking role,” to keep the boss’s attention focused on me, while I dodged his attacks and “kited” him around the screen. Jonah harried him with arrows, while simultaneously cutting down all the adds, mobs, and creepers that spawned around us.
My health was dipping below 10%. Jonah’s was not much better. Who knew if we had any credits left? Would it all be for naught?
And then I got a POWER-UP. I don’t exactly know how, but all of a sudden, I could “one-shot” the extra “mobs.” All the mobs vanished. This was it. Who knew how long it would last.
Jonah and I stood toe to toe with our adversary. It was a fight to the death now. Blow after blow after blow rained down on him. He had 15% health. Now 13%. Now 10%.
Who would last? My health was down to 2%. Jonah was about one hit away from dying.
And then JONAH got a power up.
YES.
This boss didn’t stand a chance now. Not with BOTH of us wielding powered-up FROST swords doing DOUBLE the damage. We both charged.
The boss’s health went for 10% to ZERO in one second. He couldn’t even land a SINGLE blow.
As one, father and son smote their enemy. He collapsed in a pixelated heap on the mountainside. We stood over his remains, forever victorious.
Jonah laughed and walked away.
I almost told him our game wasn’t technically over since we hadn’t died yet, but Jonah was done.
So we left.
Maybe someone else finished our games, but I choose to believe our characters are continuing the fight without us, forever immortalized.
This was one of those trips I had taken just to get Jonah out of the house. I never thought it could be like “this.”
Because it wasn’t without risk. Less than a year ago, Jonah had the MOTHER of all meltdowns at Dave and Busters. We had swore never to go back.
It was loud. It was crowded. And It was expensive.
But Jonah LOVED it. He had a blast. I had a blast.
After I added it all up, I figured we ended up only spending about $25 playing “Minecraft Dungeons.”
Money well-spent if you ask me.