Being in my mid-20s at the time, I had the kind of confident resilience that comes from believing you’ll stay young forever. I slept on couches and trains and even one night on a papasan chair, the only piece of furniture I owned in Montreal, confident that my back would never punish me for the abuse. I lugged around a crappy laptop and Nintendo Switch (which I wrote about here ) from airplanes to coffee shops to co-working spaces, as the only way to get paid. I rented flats made of shoe boxes that I could barely afford, convinced that I would solve some kind of work situation one way or another, which (luckily) it did in the end. And, I told myself, I would make friends. I’ve done it before.
But then the pandemic happened, etc., etc., Animal Crossing during quarantine, banging pots on balconies, you know the details. We were all cut off from each other, but I—having also hurriedly moved from urban Montreal to relatively remote Nova Scotia to be with my partner—had never felt more alone.
I didn’t really know anyone in this new province. After all, I didn’t expect to be here. That was not part of the plan. The version of me who decided to move to Canada in my 20s (fun! bold! resilient!) was a very different version of me who moved to Nova Scotia in my 30s (tired! tired!
Then in 2022 I returned to London for the first time in five years, this time with my partner. We stayed with my friends in the northeast part of the city and started planning get-togethers, just like we used to.
And we launched Mario Party.
So the first half of this story is full of melancholy and loneliness, but the second half of this story is… well, it’s Mario Party. I friends are obsessed with Mario Party, the same way a small child is obsessed Frozen, or a man-eating shark obsessed with cannibalism. You’ll fall fast asleep, then wake up to one of them looming over you in the dark, Joy-Cons handed to you, saying weird and creepy things like “hey, do you want to be Monty Mole” and “I promise I won’t use anything too bad for you, really Playing Mario Party with the aforementioned friends was the only way I got out of London with my kidneys intact.
So there we are, playing friendship-ending minigames on my friend’s couch, sharing a pot of tea and loud, messy laughter. Although Mario Party is predictable in its unpredictability and you always know to expect nothing but a Nintendo-flavored betrayal, it has a wide range of mini-games and twists that always manage to surprise you. You can be easily lulled into thinking that there is some strategy to it, or that the best player will always win, or that the world is fair, but none of that is true. Mario Party is a chaos engine and that’s what makes it so special.
And the thing is… it just wouldn’t work that well online. During the pandemic I played a many online game, and they still do, with those same friends — from chaotic Stardew farms and Minecraft kingdoms to Jackbox sessions that end with us trying not to pee ourselves laughing. But playing games on the same machine I do my work on, on a browser that happens to contain every single distraction in the known universe, puts the social interaction I have right now on par with, say, Wikipedia. It’s just another thing I’m doing on a big rectangle.
The internet is a wonderful thing, but I’m glad it never comes close to the beauty and intimacy of a shared real-time game experience. I wish that wasn’t true, because frankly, taking a six-hour plane trip just to experience local multiplayer isn’t really financially feasible most of the time. Maybe it’s because I’m in the same time zone, which was something I didn’t think about until I left a country that only has one for a country with six — things are always kind of funnier when you all share the same sky. Or maybe it’s just the closeness and intimacy that I can kick my best friend in the face when she steals one of my stars.
If there’s one thing I learned from this expensive yet beautiful Mario Party session, it’s this: Never trust your friends. I’m not kidding. I think I’ve learned that I need to find ways to see my real friends live more often. Social interactions via Discord and video calls are wonderful, but they’re no substitute for the real thing. If you have friends nearby, go give them a hug for me. And then steal their stars. It’s the perfect crime.
Do you prefer playing games with friends online or in person? Let us know in the comments.