With the momentous event of my son turning one I thought I would reflect briefly on my last year as a father and a gamer. Whilst it has not been easy to maintain two hobbies, a full time job and a small bubbly child, it has been rewarding. I found myself settings targets and achieving goals I would never have reached in a world in which I had time to procrastinate.

First of all, to any new fathers who spend a significant amount of time gaming: be prepared for it to stop at once. Those first initial weeks when you bring your new bundle of joy home will be quite overwhelming and you may find that you want to spend what little downtime you have doing less intensive things, like watching television or reading. To be honest gaming was one of the last things I thought of during those early days. More time was spent on sterilizing equipment, preparing food and spending an inordinate amount of time of the sofa with a baby on one arm and the other trying to reach for the remote control which was always just out of reach.

After a short time we managed to get into the swing of things. Who changes the baby, when nap times are, feeding times and so on. Once we had something vaguely resembling a routine going, I began to plan gaming times, they were few and far between but what little time I did spend gaming was very enjoyable. If you are a prolific gaming hoarder like me (and I completely blame Steam sales for this), then you already have a fair amount of anxiety about all the untouched games you have stored away. It turns to frustration when you see games coming out that gain high reputation that I can neither enjoy nor afford. However once I accepted that I would probably never play them all, I began to relax and enjoy my existing gaming time a whole lot more.

In the first six months I shied away from any online games, sticking only to games I could pause or could leave standing. I played a significant portion of The Witcher 3 and Shadow Of Mordor during this time, it being perfectly suited for frequent interruptions. The Lego games, and any point and click adventures were good for interrupted gaming. Anything with subtitles was mandatory. Babies, as I found out, are loud…

The real turning point was when my son began going to bed at a regular hour. From seven in the evening, we were free! At least until around ten when it was our bed time as the little lump in the household decides that early wake up calls at five-thirty am are mandatory, but we had time to ourselves again. Three hours of freedom achieved! Time to boot up the computer.

We were fortunate because as soon as our son went in his own room he began to sleep all night. A fantastic blessing when I found myself on Overwatch with a good group and accidentally playing until one in the morning, keeping one eye on the baby monitor and panicking at every small movement he makes. But during the day I did find myself in state of limbo, especially if it was a weekend and I was looking after him whilst the wife got a well deserved break (she insisted I wrote this).

I’m not one to ignore my child in the day, and try not to immerse myself in games whilst he’s awake and playing. In between keeping his attention, feeding him meals and stopping him climbing up the television I can’t delve too deep into any games until he goes to bed. But as I said earlier I’m not as worried about clearing my backlog of games for the sake of it, instead taking the time to enjoy the games I’m into at the moment. In the last year I have managed to play the following:

The Witcher 3 — Replaying as I bought it again for the PC, never did complete it however.

Lego Lord Of The Rings — Fully completed, for a second time. I tried achievement hunting but soon got bored of that.

Mass Effect 1 — For the fifth time. Mass Effect 2 was started but soon put on the back bench.

Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor — Not completed but a fair amount played. Branding abilities really changed how I played.

Rocket League — One of those games I just couldn’t put down.

The Talos Principle — Brilliant puzzle game. Again I still need to complete this.

Overwatch — How addictive can a game be? So much of this played.

The Sims 4 — A fair amount of this played. My opinions of this are here.

On reflection, that’s not bad for a years gaming, considering I almost expected to give it up. I managed to get a lot more freedom than I thought, especially in the later part of the year. I am also a keyboardist in several bands which has also kept me busy, but as I don’t play too frequently, the demand to practice and rehearse has not been too great.

The important thing for me was that my son was never put in second place. We are lucky in that he is not a difficult child. He takes food brilliantly, is rarely ill, handled teething like a professional tooth gardener and sleeps incredibly well for someone without bowel control. Looking forward, I can tell year two will be much more difficult affair as he is gradually becoming not just a baby, but a small boy.

We are already seeing signs of tantrums, he has a favourite TV show, and it won’t be long before he starts to pay attention to the hand sized piece of plastic I keep pushing and shouting at…Our second year of parenthood commences, and hopefully his gaming journey will begin.

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