Childhood Appendix N

There's a bandwagon going around of people thinking back on things from their childhood that ended up impacting their tastes, and I have extra free time today so I'll do the same and try to remember old games, books, movies and the likes that I feel like looking back on were informing the type of stuff I enjoy nowadays and that bleeds into the games I run.

This means this isn't a list of all the things I enjoyed in my childhood, but rather just me trying to think back on the media I have consumed while young and thinking which ones shape the type of games I run.
I have also attempted to stick to things media I'd have consumed up to the age of 18, but it is possible that some stuff from later years has snuck in without me realising it.

 

Movies/TV/Anime

•  Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash
• A much more grounded take on the whole isekai "I woke up in a fantasy world" trope, and one that I still fondly look back on. Killing a single goblin is a big and dangerous deal for beginners.
• Madoka Magica
• I don't run magical girl stuff or really find myself in that genre too often, but how the series first establishes what is "normal" and only afterwards tears that down I feel can also be seen in how I like to set up my games 

I didn't want to add Lord of the Rings here even though it is like The fantasy adventure movie, and neither did I include it in the books section. I just don't think it's in the end left much of an influence, especially since I'd seen orcs and elves before that already.
I've also never been that big on watching movies, and only began watching horror during my university days so I can't add any of that stuff here either.

 

Videogames

• Stalker 
• I actually originally got the first game because I couldn't get Fallout 3, by the time I did get Fallout 3 I had already been swallowed up by Stalker and the wasteland of Fallout left me wanting for something more grueling
• Mount & Blade: Warband
• I think this was my first "true sandbox" game, in the sense that there was absolutely no plot or pre-set goal to win or complete the game 
• Demon's Souls & Dark Souls
•  Think this one is almost mandatory and should speak for itself
• Thief: Deadly Shadows
• My friend had this on his xbox and I loved the premise and idea of the game. He didn't though, and so we never played through too much of it. The game did live in my head rent-free for a time before I finally as an adult got it on PC. I should finish it one of these days.
• Morrowind
• Back when walking into random caves was dangerous and scary because you'd see all these monsters on the loading screens and if something looked even remotely like one of them you'd bolt out of there 
• Planescape: Torment
• I got this from my uncle who told me that probably the entire game could be played by talking your way through things rather than having to do any proper fighting, which got me really curious. Another one that still sits in the shameful pile of "I really ought to play through it at least once". 

 

Books/Manga

• Almost everything fantasy by Ursula Le Guin, except Earthsea.
• I distinctly remember loaning a huge earthsea tome from the library and never getting further than the third(?) book.
• Berserk
• If Dark Souls gets on the list, then Berserk has to be here as well 
• Innocent and Innocent Rouge
• The art is beautiful, please go read it 

 There should likely be a bunch more young adult fantasy novels here, but I would need to take a walk through the library I used to frequent to remember even half of what those might have been.

 

Closing Thoughts

It's a rather sparse list, and I honestly did struggle putting even this much of it together. I am sure a bunch more books would belong here because when I was young I was much more into reading books than watching movies and did go through most of the more interesting sounding titles in the fantasy section of our local library.
If someone managed to pull a list of movies I have seen from my brain somehow I probably could point at it and go "hey that one could have been on the list", but while writing this post I couldn't for the life of me conjure up a single title let alone one(s) that I feel might've had any sort of influence in how I run elfgames or what type of elfgames I enjoy nowadays.