The Redemption of Pingu the Noscoper
April 1, 2016 11:43 AM   Subscribe

From the Camp Santo Quarterly comes this lovely little story: As a kid, did you know someone who claimed their uncle worked at Nintendo?
With Firewatch, the uncle was real.
posted by churl (13 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
If by "Nintendo" you mean "a small indie game developer that doesn't even publish on Nintendo systems," then yes, I suppose the rumors are true.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:00 PM on April 1, 2016


That's kind of exactly what they mean.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:22 PM on April 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


I was thinking the other day about the ubiquity of this lie. I had two different kids tell it to me when I was a kid. Where did it come from?
posted by dismas at 12:29 PM on April 1, 2016


Where did it come from?

Just one of those things kids do, like American kids inventing an boyfriend/girlfriend from Canada. Nintendo was one of the coolest things going for kids back then, so I guess I'm not that surprised kids used it to score cool points
posted by Hoopo at 12:31 PM on April 1, 2016


dismas I'd say the same basic kid one-upmanship that "my dad could beat up your dad" or "jinx on you to infinity plus one" comes from.
posted by Wretch729 at 12:33 PM on April 1, 2016


Let me take this opportunity to suggest that Firewatch is a lovely game that everyone should play - a little on the short side with about 4 hours of gameplay if you hurry through, but one of the better attempts at emotionally-affecting narrative gameplay I've ever experienced, and very beautiful visually. It's available for PS4 and PC and runs pretty well on low-spec machines.
posted by killdevil at 12:35 PM on April 1, 2016 [3 favorites]


Let me take this opportunity to suggest that Firewatch is a lovely game that everyone should play

YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES. Sorry, derail, but it was a really wonderful little piece of storytelling, beautiful game, and I absolutely loved playing it with my husband.
posted by bowtiesarecool at 1:20 PM on April 1, 2016 [2 favorites]


Ha, that's amazing.

Firewatch is a really lovely and affecting game and everyone should play it ASAP. It still sticks in my mind a month later, and there's a lot to mull over, if you're the mulling-over type.

Also, I had something better than the uncle from Nintendo - I had the uncle from Sierra.

I didn't get any juicy tidbits, but I got a lot of free Sierra games in that late 80's period when they were hitting it out of the park - King's Quest 3 and 4, Space Quest 1, Police Quest 1, Betrayal at Krondor, The Black Cauldron, etc. Good times. I don't know if we were getting our hands on them before anyone else. It was pre-internet and we were one of the only families around with a desktop computer, let alone computer games.
posted by naju at 3:20 PM on April 1, 2016 [6 favorites]


I used to bug my parents - "When are we going to see Sierra Uncle again?" because every time we saw him he had boxes of games to give us and we would freak out like it was Christmas.
posted by naju at 3:23 PM on April 1, 2016 [3 favorites]


(Alas, he did not get us any of the Leisure Suit Larry games, so there were no cool points to be had compared to the Older Brother Who Has It And You Can See Naked Ladies On The Computer)
posted by naju at 3:33 PM on April 1, 2016


My favorite part of firewatch was that you can get photos developed after the game - liked how it crossed over to create a physical memory of your play through
posted by motdiem2 at 12:48 AM on April 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


OMG, I can't believe nobody has linked this yet: The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo

posted by Joe in Australia at 4:40 AM on April 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


naju, I hope you're OK with the fact that you're now "my friend whose uncle worked for Sierra" the next time I get into an argument about whether or not there was a ghost in the kobold's cave in promo screenshots of QFG1. (There totally was. My friend's uncle worked for Sierra.)
posted by Zeinab Badawi's Twenty Hotels at 8:21 AM on April 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


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