Ye olde ball rolling

By Joe Pelone
Collegian Editor
March 29, 2006

The more rewarding an accomplishment is, the less likely it is to have any effect on “real life,” or so my brief, immature life has taught me. Graduating from high school was a big deal, I guess. I mean, it took four years worth of lunch and free periods to get to that point, and sometimes I even had to take tests. But I’m more proud of having self-released an EP, all pressed and factory-sealed, and getting it sold at stores in my hometown. Recording and releasing original music carries a sense of importance (or narcissism, either/or). But even such garage-band glory days are blown away by the ultimate in pseudo-self-realization: mastering games, like Labyrinth, one of my favorites as a kid.

In Labyrinth, players have to manipulate a marble through a wooden obstacle course up and down with two knobs. One knob could tilt the board to the left or right, while the other could move the front and back parts. Players need to make the marble evade a series of holes in order to get to the finish line, where glory and a wasted afternoon awaited the victor. Each hole had a number of points assigned to it, too, but those didn’t matter. Only the end of the trail did. The game was simple, and thus caused me to obsess over it greatly when I was but a wee Pelone.

The first time I beat the game was through memorization. I made a mental note of every turn, twist and trap, and how to adjust the knobs just so. Eventually, I became good enough with the knobs to just mess around. A few violent twists of the controls, and I could make the marble hop over the walls of the maze, which was cool only to me. By age seven, I was a master. By about age eight, I’d forgotten the damned thing in favor of Sega Genesis.

Fast forward to the summer of 2004, when I had just graduated high school and was spending most of my time at the Jersey shore. In between sunburned beach trips and late-night, sleep-deprived philosophical debates about souls and candy bars (we were weird kids), there would be Labyrinth jam sessions.

Most of my Jersey experiences that summer utilized my friend John’s shore house, and inside said house was a beaten-up Labyrinth board. It was scratched and weathered. The knobs were loose and a bit rusty, but then again, so was I, so who am I to judge? The crappiness of the board actually enhanced the playing, though. The controls were harder to use, thereby making the game ridiculously difficult. Of course, it sucks to be bad at a game you used to dominate as a kid, and having your friends stand around deriding you adds to that general sentiment, but it was all in good, sugar-fueled fun.

I like to think that during Senior Week, while other kids our age were off drinking assorted sordid beverages that shan’t be named in this publication, what my friends and I were doing was just as fun. Labyrinth was a great game when I was a kid, and it still gets the party going today. Not as well as drinks and the Black Eyed Peas could, but, you know. Whatever.

pelonej1@lasalle.edu