Happiness is a Game Boy

Life is full of little rituals, and little rituals are also a huge part of the appeal of games. Build orders, sending loot off on your pet, typing out a cheery GG. But the best rituals go beyond any individual games. They exist, as platform holders might say, at the hardware level.

Here’s a favourite. I find a spot in the park. I check for the position of the sun. I arrange bag and book and Tesco Meal Deal, lie back and then fiddle with the screen of the tiny device I’m holding just so, until it catches the light and comes to life.

For a while this year, this was a ritual I performed while sitting in the park with a Playdate. But the ritual was slightly complicated, because it harkened back to the real deal, which for me was arranging the reflective screen of the Game Boy Advance when sat by the sash window in my old bedsit. A few weeks ago, I wanted to go past even that former ritual. I wanted to go to the source, to the land before the GBA. I dug out the silver Game Boy Pocket I bought on eBay a while back – boxed! – and then filed somewhere on a bookshelf. I found the 4 double-As I assumed I’d need and then found the two triple-As I actually needed, jammed in Tetris, and headed to the park.

You know what? It was different. It feels different. And I almost hate to say it, but here we are: the Game Boy feels more pure somehow. This was – not the Pocket necessarily but go with it – the first of these screens that needed to be angled to the light. And when you get the light just right, I swear the screen is actually better and sharper and more intoxicating than anything backlit. This is clearly not literally true, but still. The ritual makes it better, and the perseverance makes it better. And the knowledge that you’re using this screen to make your triple-As go a bit further doesn’t hurt either.