Being a Kaizo Squib

Before first grade, my family moved entirely across 10 miles into a new school district. Of course, to me at the time, this felt like light-years. It took until high school to finally find a group of peers that I could count as true friends - my first ever "safe space" in a drama/speech classroom in thae mornings before first period, where a crew would hang out and play improv games. They were the first group that welcomed me into their world without asking much about me or holding any expectations. Naturally, in order to be a full participant in the group, I became the most unlikely of theater kids. I sunk myself into that world in part because I enjoyed the activity, but also because I enjoyed and cherished the people around me.

Fast forward 15 years, and I feel that way all over again, except with something I never thought I would ever see myself struggling with.

Even for the most skilled platformers, Kaizo is a love letter to overcoming repeated and unapologetic failure. To someone like me, who always loved video games but never had the attention span to master any single one, let alone a platformer on a console I didn't own, the mountain feels impossible to climb. It's one thing to learn how to golf, or to play piano - it's another thing to golf on Augusta National or play Rachmaninoff. It's another thing still to golf Augusta National or play Rachmaninoff while the crowd is throwing bricks at you.

Over the past year, I've found my life irreversibly changed for the better people who unite around the video game equivalent of "playing Rachmaninoff while avoiding bricks." The skill possessed by this community is only surpassed by their willingness to welcome those who wish to be around them, their ferocity in protecting their own, and their ability to share positive reinforcement with those who come forward requesting it.

So, I do what I've always done. I join the group. Unlike high school, though, where I had a musical training and background that I could build on, this is a new kind of "join."

I'm, well, not good. Nah, it's deeper than that. I'm a kaizo squib (my forgiveness for using a Potterverse term in 2020, but I can't think of a better one).

I can tell you about all sorts of hacks that I've watched other people play. I can recommend hacks for you to try. I can commentate with some proficiency and describe the moves being done on screen. I can maintain conversation with anyone on the topic and come across as an expert. I can even make my own levels that are adequate enough for my friends to play. I just am abjectly bad at playing them myself.

Put a controller in my hand and ask me to do what I've seen dozens of my friends do, and I'll flail around like a fish. I just don't have the skills. Or, rather, the amount of practice necessary for me to play these games with a semblance of enjoyment would be a tall task with no other obligations. Add in day job, singing, family commitments and just existing, and it feels impossible. Kids have to be forced to practice piano to get good enough to want to do it, and I'm at the stage where I need to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star before I can play the masterworks.

This is awkward, because I'm also someone who is becoming more and more involved in using my "day job" skills to participate in the kaizo community through helping organize and logistically plan events and projects. Few things give me more satisfaction than the work being done through Romhack Races, and the work I've done on/at various GDQs are the highlights of my adult life so far. I've given everything I have to make those events as successful as possible for both the players and the audience. Partly because I don't feel like I have anything else to give the community, so when the community needs an organizer or a promoter, I jump up.

I know you don't need to be an artist to run a gallery, a skateboarder to run a skate park, etc. But the inability to join in the fun with my friends is painful at times. Other times, though? I feel like the luckiest guy in the world, because I get a front row seat to watch some incredibly skilled people do amazing feats of coordination and reaction timing.

Maybe one day, I'll get good. Until I do, I'm not sure I'll ever truly feel like part of the community. I'll never be a Mario Master, but as long as the people who are are willing to provide a space for me to make their jobs easier and make my life better? I'll gladly keep trying.