The Thrill of Square Blocks

Everyone knows the 1980s are making a big comeback, as epitomized in Netflix's new E.T.-esque, "kids' sci-fi" show Stranger Things. (They didn't get it all right, though: the score was spot-on, but they forgot to put in Big Hair.) I'm not sure how the recent '80s renaissance began, but I'm thinking it was smartphones? Especially underpowered smartphones with poor-quality displays? Or maybe that Millennials like myself who remember the '80s as children are taking over the world and bringing back the magic we remember. We now know that it's the simpler things in life we cherish, like the thrill of hunting for over-sized pixels.

If you're Gen-Z and never had the thrill of living in the '80s, let me take you back to a time when the world had only 8 or 16 colors you could see. It was truly amazing. It was a step up from the 1930s, when the whole world was in black-and-white. I mean, color was introduced to Planet Earth when Dorothy opened her farmhouse door and stepped into the Land of Oz, right? What was that you said? Color existed before film? You're joking, aren't you?

Never mind. Back to the Future of the '80s, when primary colors (and shocking pink) were the big thing. Look at the picture above from the videogame "Jumpman." What is the first thing you notice? Probably the brightest spot in the picture, those white blocks surrounding the red and purple. Is that a flower? Are those petals? I can't quite tell. That thing on top seems a bit like a horse's head to me! Oh, I can sort of see it now -- that's supposed to be a man! But -- where are his hands? Someone chopped off his arms!

It didn't matter to a four-year-old. I moved my joystick (you probably don't remember those) left and right, and I pressed the single red button it had, and Great Scott! The little man of blocks obeyed me. I was like God. (Except I only had six lives -- that was how games worked in those days.)

So if I managed to figure out that my character was meant to be human, not much else looked real. I never knew that those little brown circles I was hunting were supposed to be bombs until I read about them on Wikipedia two decades later. They were just objects to catch. It didn't matter that I lost every time and could never finish the game. It was just, like, totally rad. Shocking. Dangerous. Some games like these gave me nightmares afterward. Maybe, though, the nightmares were caused by the flickering, interlaced screen that passed for a computer monitor.

Well, we thought we were cool back then. No one told us that one day apps could load instantly on your smartphone. Look at the first picture again -- see the words "Please wait"? It took about five to ten minutes to load this game on my Commodore 128. (I don't remember the exact length -- time flows differently when you're young compared to when you're an adult.) It was perfectly acceptable to go down to the kitchen, eat lunch, and then head back to the bedroom just in time to start the game. Because, after all, floppy disks were so cute.

You poor Gen-Zers. If you were born in the late '90s or 2000s, you just don't know what you missed. Really.