The PK 27 -- Game No. 1

In my elementary school days (second or third grade, this was), some mornings my brother, Leopold, and I would go up the street so my best friend's mother could give us a lift to school. I think it was because my mother was at the time pregnant with my sister, Hannah, and was in the hospital, but I'm a little hazy on that*. Regardless, the two of us always had to wait 30 minutes or so for my friend -- let's call him Erik** -- to get ready, and when we weren't playing with Erik's Star Wars or G.I. Joe action figures*** we were playing games on his now-prehistoric PC.

Archon was one of those games.

Ostensibly a game of chess with D&D characters, Archon's selling point was that when a piece tried to take one of its opponent's the two pieces -- goblins, unicorns, a fucking manticore -- would duel it out, mano-a-mano. And while each character possessed his/her/its own strengths and weaknesses, Leopold and I, at our young ages, tended to resort to that faithful standard of video game-playing youth: button mashing****; so, while I realized the game's potential, it would be untruthful to say we experienced all that Lord Archon had to offer in the way of uniqueness. At the time, though, I thought Archon was the greatest achievement in gaming innovation, despite my ignorance of its nuances. I'd figure that shit out later, I told myself. Because time was on my hands. After all, who wants to play a boring game of chess when Archon offers you combat avec swords, balls of fire, and FUCKING BOULDERS? The king in chess can only move one space and has to be protected by his wife, that pussy. History would show, I was convinced, that Archon revolutionized games and gaming like Henry Ford revolutionized the automobile industry. In twenty years nobody would be playing chess. Everybody would be playing Archon.

Of course, things didn't turn out that way, which is for the best. Kids think of the stupidest shit sometimes.


* In my old age, I'm hazy on a lot of things. But while I might not remember your name, I damn sure remember your face, especially since we met just last week, dummy.

** because that's his name

*** Destro with a gold mask! The fucking rancor!

**** Or were we using the keyboard? Again, I'm hazy on this.