Where Have All The Dens Gone?

Replaced by Computer Rooms and Home Offices, the Den has been stricken from the landscape of contemporary domestic architectural nomenclature. Technology strikes again! Prior to the Information Age, not all homes had a computer. Oh it’s hard to fathom now, but there once was a time when the majority had none. And even then, those lucky few didn’t have it nearly as good as we all have it now. Does anyone miss BBSing? BASIC games? I refuse to engage in any nostalgia here.

Not so for the erstwhile Den, for I miss a good Den.

The Den was a much more peaceful alternative to the Computer Room. No white-noise generating fans to weigh you down with the constant reminder of what you should be doing right now. No flourescent lighting. And pillows. Lots of pillows.

Once a haven for deskborne inspiration, the Den (or Study) has fallen out of favour with the fickle masses who seemingly require much less subtle labelling for their rooms. “What’s a Den anyways?” It’s important, ignoramous — if one does not know the proper name for any given room whereby one finds oneself situated at any given point in time on a three dimensional plane of existence, one ceases to exist. It’s that simple.

Banished from th’floorplan eternal.

Sounds like a pharmaceutical doesn’t it? Thaflorpan — to help cope with the loss of your life. The Den’s life, rather.

It’s really not worth killing yourself over. Although one has to wonder why the computer has been given seeming carte blanche to waltz all over long established parameters in determining key functionality in a living space. So what? You say, I’m typing this on a computer right now. I would say you’re right.

But I’m doing so in my Den.

King’s Quest Is The Best PC Game of All Time

May Myst rust, Half-Life be damned. Civilization I through IV? Pretty damn good, granted — but Civ never caused me no pre-pubescent psychosis. I can thank Ken and Roberta Williams and the rest of the Sierra crew exclusively for that. It’s still vividly hazy to me, a fever dream of youthful obsession that comes to me when least expected, similar to the way in which hippies must surely recall 1967. There I sit, cloistered in the den-cum-computer room of my parents’ house (R.I.P fair Den, stricken from the floorplan of every home since 1991 — you could not have known the changes that would come with cheap technology), entranced by the blocky EGA graphics (16 colours, bitches), crouched over the keys in a gamer’s pose that would make even an arthritic chiropractor’s mouth water with anticipation of future back problems. Mere screens from an assured victory I receive no other stimuli, ignoring the cramps in my right hand working the arrow keys like a virtuoso. My breath comes in short, rythmic rasps now. I can feel it. Drunk on entitlement, I start across the moat-spanning bridge. Two screens to go now. Routine.

I promptly fall off into the waiting jaws of a crocodile.

Shit.

The twelve-year-old version of myself failed to see the need for save games.

I saw red.

There came a gnashing of teeth and a soul-birthed howl of insanity. Papers cleared from desktop in one fell swoop, chairs overturned. Above it all rose a fierce wind in the east as the sun faded west, chased hither by an unstable young man with a turtleneck sweater and a bad haircut.

My parents, fearing for my mental health, promptly stripped me of my computer priveledges for one month. A travesty, but I suppose if Civilization has taken a couple years off my life, that one episode took at least five off my parents’.

So godspeed to you Kings Quest, as I raise a glass in honour of all the games that required of their participants a basic understanding of cause and effect, puzzle-solving skills and logic — in other words, all the games that have done more than merely train another generation to choose the right gun for killing Arabs.