Pixeloria

The routine clicking of my mouse and calming background music of my favourite video game have always cured my headaches faster than an Advil does. It’s calming, all I have to do is water the crops and talk to the villagers. The world around me, the real world, fades away in favour of this small town where I run my farm and care for my kids. I guess in a way it reminds me of back home. My farmhouse deck had the same wood panelling as my old house back in Mount Forest. The forest on the edge of town harbours the same kind of trees we planted in the schoolyard in kindergarten. The gravel roads make the same noise the bike paths made under my training wheels.

A light knock on my door pulled me out of my inner monologue. I blinked and focused my eyes back on my screen, realising I had been walking into a wall for god knows how long. I turned around in my desk chair to face my door, wiping whatever remnants of tears had dried on my face.

“Come in,” I said softly, dreading the face I was bound to see when the door opened.

“Sammy?” My dad said, pushing the door open slowly. His face was sympathetic, and he smiled sadly once his eyes met mine. I promptly turned my chair back to face my computer, partly out of anger and partly out of shame. I heard the floorboards creak as my dad made his way into my room. My bed groaned under his weight as he sat down on it.

“Hey, Dad,” I muttered. My eyes remained stuck to my screen.

“Hey, kid. Whatcha playin'?”

“Agricraft. It’s just some farm game.” My dad nodded along to my words, humming a noise of acknowledgement.

“Are those red oak trees?” He asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. He didn’t say it, but I knew he was thinking of home. An awkward silence settled in the room. I continued to click my mouse routinely, planting pixelated corn to distract from the tense atmosphere.

“So…” He finally said, clearly tiptoeing around his point. I sighed and turned away from my game, finally facing him.

“I’m sorry for yelling earlier. I know you and Mom were just trying to help.” I said, hanging my head in shame.

“Don’t worry about it kiddo. Me and your mom were being pushy. We know how hard it can be to make friends after a big move.” My dad said quietly. I didn’t respond, just nodded a bit. I was afraid that if I spoke my voice would come out shaky and watery. “Does your computer have a place to put discs?”

“What?” I asked, confused by the sudden topic change, “Um, yes, It does. Why?”

“I was up in the attic a couple days ago taking care of that bat that was living up there,” I shivered at the memory of that wretched bat, shaking off the memory of when it attacked my head, “And I found this video game I had played all the time when I was a kid.”

“You had video games when you were growing up?”

“Jesus, I’m not that old.” Dad chuckled, “We did have video games, and this one was my favourite.”

He held up an old disc that was in shockingly good condition. The case was a bit dusty, but I could see what was pictured on it pretty clearly. There was a bird's eye pixelated house, sitting at the peak of a blocky-looking mountain. Down below, there were a multitude of different environments. A forest, a desert, an ocean, even a swamp all sat at the base of the mountain. Above the image were large cubic letters that read “Pixeloria”. The case was eye-catching, to say the least.

“How do you play?” I asked.

“Explore and build stuff, I guess. You can farm, just like your game.” I glanced back at my computer, seeing the vague similarities between my screen and Pixeloria.

“Hm. I thought you’d be more into story games.”

“Those are cool too, but Pixeloria was always my favourite.” He took a moment to look at the case, wiping the final bits of dust off the plastic cover, “Where's the disc drive?”

“Here,” I said, clicking the button that made the drive pop out. I moved over to make room for my dad at my desk as he pulled up the extra stool I had near my desk. He popped open the case and carefully removed the disc, placing it on the drive and pushing it closed. I reached across the desk and closed Agricraft. I could get back to my crops later.

After a couple seconds of waiting, the Pixeloria loading screen took over my monitor. The same house that was one the case was depicted on my screen, just from a different angle. Seeing it now from the front, I could tell that it was a quaint, light pink farmhouse. I caught a glimpse of the cozy interior through the Georgian windows, warm light spilling out of them onto the old porch. A young man wearing overalls and a beige flannel shirt stood leaning on the porch's bannister, his dark hair blowing lightly in the wind as he looked off into the distance. After a moment, the same pixelated lettering from the case appeared on screen, the word “Pixeloria” taking up a good portion of the orange, late afternoon sky.

“Do you play as that guy?” I asked, pointing to the man on the screen.

“You can pick from a couple different characters, but I always picked him.” Dad replied, gazing at the familiar image, “But the character you play as doesn’t really matter. It’s a building game, mostly.”

The game finished loading and a list of worlds appeared before us. They all had stupid names like “cheeseburger” and “boobs”, clearly the makings of a teenage boy. My dad hung his head in shame as I chuckled over the image of my dad and his friends laughing their asses off while naming one of these worlds “penis”.

“I forgot those were on there…” My dad trailed off with an amused smile on his face.

“This is the weirdest glimpse into your childhood I’ve ever gotten,” I replied through laughs. Dad scrolled up to the top of the list, the most recently created worlds. At the very top was one titled “Jack's World”. The access date in the corner was years later than all the others, showing that Dad must have played on it pretty recently.

“Here we go.” He muttered to himself as he clicked on it. The loading screen reappeared. Dad readjusted the keyboard and mouse so they were more angled towards him. Suddenly, my attention was drawn back to the screen as I watched the world load in. The quality wasn’t great, but that was expected for an old game like this one. The world appeared chunk by chunk, eventually revealing the view of a vast forest that seemed to go on forever. We must have been standing on a mountain, because all I could see were the tops of trees and the occasional glimpse into the dark forest floor.

Dad then took control of the mouse, turning away from the forest and towards the other side of the mountain. He whipped around way too fast, not yet used to the sensitivity of the mouse. I chuckled as he got used to the controls, eventually getting the screen to show the other side of the mountain. For a game, the view was breathtaking. The mountain we were on was the tallest part of a ring of mountains that surrounded a beautiful field full of vibrant green grass and a rainbow of flowers. Spread out around the field, there was a collection of buildings, all completely different and looking somewhat out of place. Somehow, the odd selection of structures didn’t take away from the pixelated beauty of the mountain range.

“Wow, that’s really pretty,” I said, my eyes glued to the scene. I could see that my dads were too in my peripherals.

“I know, right? I’ve seen this a million times and it's still just as beautiful as it was the first time I saw it.” 

“I can’t believe we’re talking about a video game like this.”

“We both need to get outside more,” Dad said as he began descending the mountain, fumbling with the controls once again.

“What are all those buildings?” I asked.

“Those are the reasons I loved this game so much,” Dad stated, smiling at me warmly. He approached the first house and stopped right in front of it. “Do you know what this is?”

“No.”

“This is the house I lived in until I was eight.” Dad was looking at the pixelated structure fondly.

“Really?” I asked as he entered the house.

“Yep.” He answered simply as he made his way through the detailed rooms, “This was the kitchen, I would always sit right there. And this is the living room where me and Uncle John would play Jenga. This is the bathroom with the shallowest bath I’ve ever been in, it’s the one thing I don’t miss about this house. And this is my room.”

I sat in silence as he took me through the house, showing me where he grew up. I never even knew he had lived anywhere but my Grandma's house.

“Now I’ll show you something you’ll recognize.” My dad said, leaving the house and moving on to the next building in the field. I instantly recognized the small, Tudor-style house to be my Grandma’s out in the country.

“Oh my god,” I said, astounded. I couldn't believe how similar it looked, down to the discoloured bricks and the potted plants on the porch. “How long did you spend doing this?”

“A while.” Dad chuckled. I had to hold back a gasp when he opened the door and moved inside. I suddenly felt like I had walked into Grandma's house. I could even smell her ginger-snap cookies baking in the oven.

“Holy crap, this is insane Dad,” I said as we walked through the house. Each room brought another wave of goosebumps to my body, “When did you make this?”

“Right after I moved out for university.”

“How did you have so much time on your hands?” I questioned, which made Dad laugh.

“I’m not sure. Building it helped me whenever I really missed home.” He said softly. Then I understood. Dad didn’t find this game by coincidence, “Do you wanna see the rest of them?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Dad.” I replied. He smiled, leaving Grandma's house and walking up to the next building.

We laughed and talked as Dad walked me through the pixelated houses. He showed me his first university dorm room and the exact place where he found out he failed his history exam. He showed me where in his first apartment his best friend put a hole through their wall. He showed me his host family's house when he did an exchange to Norway, his first girlfriend's townhouse where he slept on the couch for 4 months, and even his first apartment with mom. Each building came with a different set of stories, and by the time we had seen all of them, the sun was long gone from the sky.

“How do you have such a good memory of these places? They’re all so detailed.” I asked him.

“Well, I lived in them. I spent time in these places, I grew in them. It’s hard to forget a home.” He said. I nodded in comprehension. He looked at me for a moment, trying to see past my face and into my brain. I think he probably did, because he turned back to the computer and said, “Here, I have one more thing to show you.”

He ran over towards one of the few open spaces in the field. I saw the beginnings of a new structure that I hadn’t noticed before. Something about the foundations of this building felt familiar, but there wasn’t enough built to put my finger on it 

“What is that?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at the screen.

“That is the foundation of the house back in Mount Forest,” Dad said. The moment he said it it all made sense. The odd shaping of the foundation from the sunroom that sticks out the side and the faded boards of the front porch were unmistakable, I’m shocked I didn’t recognise it before. Just the foundations made me feel more at home, the ghost of a warm fall breeze blowing against my cheek just like the day we left.

“You started making it?” I asked, my voice nearly breaking.

“Yeah, about a week after we moved. I miss it too, you know.” Dad replied. Of course he does, how could I not have seen that before? I had been so focused on how much I missed home that I never thought about how much he had missed it. That house was where he watched his only kid grow up.

“I’m sorry for being so angry recently.” I said, tears welling in my eyes, “I just really miss home, you know?”

“Yeah kiddo, I know,” Dad said, wrapping his arms around me and holding me close to his chest. I slung my arms around his shoulders and pressed my face into his shirt. We stayed like that for a moment before breaking apart. I let out a watery chuckle when I saw the newly damp spot on his shirt where my face had been. He laughed it off and turned back to the computer, “I never got around to finishing this one. How about we build it together?”

“Now?” I asked, looking at my clock and cringing at the time, remembering the unfinished math homework sitting in my backpack.

“...Maybe we’d better save it for tomorrow.”

We spent 4 hours the next day perfecting that house. We spared no detail. Every pixelated cupboard, closet, pantry, and drawer was filled with the memories of our old house. Once Dad had gone to bed that night, I went back in to add the things only I missed about it. Like the worn-out wood on my window sill from when I would sneak in and out of the house on weeknights, or the false bottom in my desk drawer where I kept all the tests I failed. I made sure it was perfect, so that whenever I was missing my old room, I could go sit in it again.

After a while, I stopped playing Pixeloria very often. It had felt like ages since I’d last played when I popped it into my laptop in my dorm at University. I never thought I would miss the new house like I did the one in Mount Forest, but Dad was right, it's hard not to miss a place you grew in. I made sure the house was perfect, especially my desk, where I played this game for the first time.

Now, I’m sitting at my kitchen table with my daughter, her tear-stricken face reflecting on the screen as we watch a pixelated young man's hair blow in the wind. I found her crying in her room fifteen minutes ago, blubbering about how much she missed our old apartment. Maybe it’s bad that I smiled when she said that, but how could I not be excited to show her Jack's World this early? I’ve been meaning to build that old apartment anyway, I really miss how deep the bathtub was.