I’m a retired air traffic controller and long time gamer. When I was 9 or 10 years old I first started reading military history, which got me completely hooked on that subject. Not too long after I discovered wargaming, mostly the old Avalon Hill games like War at Sea, Tactics II and Midway.
In high school most of my gaming buddies switched over to this new thing called Dungeons and Dragons. I was sort of dragged along at first, but quickly became an enthusiastic player. I recall learning about classical mythology in school (and started reading a lot more on my own); it was sort of a thing where my love of history merged with a growing love of action/fantasy. At least to me, these things all sort of merged into one.
At around this time I got the latest and greatest in computer gaming, an Atari 2600. I think for a long time computer gaming was more like goofing off from my real gaming and interests. But after college I’d moved up to a Commodore 64 and there gradually came to be some games that became more serious interests. Its hard to imagine now, but there were some serious wargames available for the C64. Like Gary Grigsby Games “Warship”, “Battle Cruiser” and “War in the South Pacific”. And some fantasy games that filled in when I couldn’t get a gaming group together, like “Phantasie”, “Ultima” and “Wizardry”.
My interest in computer gaming jumped to a new level when the first official D&D product came out, the game “Pool of Radiance” was a ton of fun. Coincidently, this came out about when career transferred me away from my long time gaming group. For many years, I returned home every few weeks to game. And eventually I started a new gaming group closer to where I now lived. But the computer gaming became an even bigger thing as face to face gaming became a lot less convenient.
This is all a long introduction to say I’ve been a computer gamer for most of my life. Now that I’m retired I’m finding more time for it than ever. And it seems I really like writing about it too. So my vision for this new site is to put up periodic posts about whatever game I’m playing now. This will be all in fun. I sort of consider another website “planedave.net” to be my full time job anymore. But I’m thinking it will be fun to post occasionally about the gaming part of my life too. That will mostly mean computer games, although conceivably if I get another D&D group together I would talk about that too.
Specifically my inspiration for this has been write ups I’ve been doing for myself of playthroughs in Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale. Its always been possible to modify your character biography in the game. And I’ve done that a lot over the years. But it was mostly just a few lines here and there, although gradually getting to be longer and more detailed. Back in December (2023) I came up with an idea for a really different theme with an Icewind Dale party. I spent a couple weeks writing it up, and tweaking things around. I am actually quite proud of what I put together. So I started taking this further with my next few plays of those two (closely related) games. Over the last month I’ve noticed I’m up to about six such write ups, with a few more as outlines ready for more attention later. Then I got to thinking I needed to post the things.
And that led to DavesGaming.
I don’t know what the future holds for this. But I think I may do some write-up/review sort of things for some other games I enjoy as I get to them. Although Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale will likely take center stage for the next few months; hey, its the kick I’m on right now…
But other big favorites of mine the last few years have been, in no particular order, “War in the Pacific: Admiral’s Edition”, “Civilization III”, “Fantasy General II” and a few others. I always have something going.
I hope, readers who find this site will leave comments on those games they know. Or even ask questions if they don’t. I’d like for there to be a discussion. And most of all, this should be fun!
~ atcDave
DavesGaming 