Despite growing up in an era when kids still actually went outside, I did spend an ungodly amount of time on my computer. I was the only one of the three kids in the house to have a computer in their bedroom - it was a gift from my mothers former boss and friend - so I spent a lot of time playing computer games on it, but one that really sticks out to me in my memory is the Lion King adjacent game, Timon & Pumbaa's Jungle Games. It's a pretty simple game. It's just a collection of minigames essentially, ranging from a frogger-esque clone to an incredible pinball game, and more.

Now, I should state that it's impressive I even liked anything remotely Lion King related because when I was very little, maybe 5 or 6, I got extremely sick and spent months in the hospital, and the only movie they played on repeat forever was "The Lion King". I never wanted to see that movie again after that. And yet, here I was, playing this game to death every day after school and on weekends.

Mini game compilations were surprisingly successful as childrens games (the very popular Thinkin' Things series is a good example of this fact), because they didn't lock you into one thing. But, as with many of these games from my childhood, it wasn't so much the game I remember as it was the mood surrounding it. My mother had re-married, I had step siblings now, along with a father who was actually around, and yet...I'd never felt more alone. I never felt like I fit in with my family, and nobody in my family ever took time to know me or ask how I was doing. So instead, I turned all my focus to hobbies, such as reading and gaming. T&P's Jungle Games was just such a game that stole hours of my life.

The "hub" of the game, if you will, was like any other kind of hub that had minigames. You had a jungle area with little spots littered around that led into the various minigames. There's the aforementioned pinball and frogger clones, but there's also a Puyo Puyo type game where bugs drop in and you have to match them up so they explode, and a few others that really aren't much of note. I must've spent hours in here. This was, in essence, a perfect childrens game. Lots of variety, lots of crass humor, likeable and recognizable characters from a popular film. It really worked on multiple levels. Not to mention that with games such a this, full on minigames, it made replay much more appealing because you could just drop in for a bit, play a little bug pinball and leave without having to worry about some deep immersive story.

But what I really got out of games, especially games such as this where it was just you and the few characters you interacted with, was companionship. At a time in my life, when I should have had friends or my family should've been interesting in interacting with me, instead I found myself turning to digital creations for companionship.

I was a very lonely little girl.

In fact, unless I was being yelled at by my parents, abused by my stepsiblings or needing someones help to do homework, I was essentially left alone in my bedroom all hours of the day after getting home from school, and on weekends? Left alone entirely. It was like I was invisible. At least, until someone wanted to try and hurt me. In a way, it was like I was an animal hiding out in the jungle of my room. Everyone outside of it were predators of one kind or another, and if I dared ever to venture outside in the wild, I ran the risk of being hunted. So I stayed within the confines of the jungle, where no one dared venture too deep, and kept myself as safe as I could within the imaginary world of computer games.

In fact, having computer a computer in my bedroom at all kinda saved my life, because the only other computer in the house at the time, and for a while, was my stepdads. Had I not had that computer in my bedroom, I would've had to go out in his home office to play things, and likely be subjected to the horrors that lay dormant within my home. In a way, these games kept me at a safe distance, protecting me from those who'd wish to do me harm, only because they chose not to seek me out as regularly as they could've had I been more readily accessible to them. I may have grown up a sad little girl, but at least I had the company of computer games, and allowed me not just creative freedom, but freedom from abusive tyranny as well.

And even if I don't have a pride around me, at least I can take some solace in the fact that I'm REALLY good at pinball.

My name is Mae. I write & make art for a living. If you like this review, you might also like my newest novel here, reading my media blog here and you can tip me for my work at Ko-Fi.