Step 1: Have an apple.
Step 2: Have a desire to peel that apple.
Step 3: Have a sharp knife.
Step 4: Find a bird. Find a bird. A bird. A bird. A bird. A bird. a bird a bird a bird a bird a bird a
Step 5: Attempt to insert the blade of the knife approximating 1 cm beneath the skin of the apple.
Step 6: Sing your apple-peeling song. The correct list of songs is as follows: Meat Loaf’s “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That),” Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance (Only Know The Refrain Remix),” and any song by Bon Jovi.
Step 7: Why are you peeling this apple anyhow? Apples are stupid.
Step 8: Throw the apple in the sink.
Step 9: Now you’ve ruined your apple pie.
Step 10: What Are You Playing
Bonus question: What’s your earliest childhood memory (that you feel like sharing)?
​Andrew Ross (@dengarsw): Oh man, what a time to be a Pokemon fan! I’m gonna be playing the heck out of New Pokemon Snap, and then take a break for Pokemon Go‘s New Pokemon Snap event. I’ll probably try to work in a hunter or two in Monster Hunter Rise, and check out the May Day event in Animal Crossing.
The earliest memory I have that I’m willing to share was raiding an Easter cake with my little brother. I must have been nearly four and he was three, and early in the morning, I had him help me up to the counter so I could get at the cake. I remember taking a jelly bean for me, then getting him one, then getting some frosting for me, and getting some for him. We were eventually caught red handed, and mom has a photo of it somewhere, but I don’t think we were punished. That was probably a mistake, mom, and an early warning sign of my sugar addiction!
Ben Griggs (@braxwolf): I just started playing ranked battles in World of Warships, so I’m going to see how that progression plays out. I’ve also got a hankering for some Cities: Skylines for some reason, so I may give that a go.
My earliest memory is bawling while my mother bandaged up my foot after stepping on a hot ember that popped out of a campfire. I was probably two years old. It must have been the pain that caused that one to stick with me.
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): A mix for me. I’m doing more prepwork in Star Wars Galaxies Legends, mostly collecting things for my future diner and mapping out how I’m going to retool my buildings. And I’ve been playing City of Heroes again too – nothing special, just leveling newer toons and enjoying it!
I remember my mom teaching me to swim!
Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes, blog): It’s primarily going to be all about Elite: Dangerous once again, but I’m also hoping that I can find some friends to play with in Monster Hunter Rise, since my husband seems to have been gassed out on the game and I can only progress with donig Hub Quests that are meant for multiplayer. I also recently got an urge to hop in to Genshin Impact again and I’m reminded of how enjoyable traipsing about that world can be, so that will possibly be sprinkled in.
Some of my better earlier memories were about gaming and tech, funnily enough. The very first game I ever touched was Night Driver on the Atari 2600 (complete with that steering knob controller) and the first PC I ever touched at depth was this VTech Pre-Computer 1000; I spent a great many hours as a young nerdling writing very simple text games in BASIC on that thing.
Eliot Lefebvre (@Eliot_Lefebvre, blog): Mostly a bit of the usual Final Fantasy XIV nonsense and a bit of leveling alts in World of Warcraft. It’ll be a low-key weekend, but that’s just fine by me after a pretty lousy week.
My earliest memory is a recurring nightmare about a lion in the hallway in the first house I remember living in. It was hiding in the hallway behind a hidden door that would slide open and it would try to eat me. I’ve never forgotten that one.
Mia DeSanzo (@neschria): I will be pecking away at the No Man’s Sky Community Expedition. It fulfills my need to set goals and then actually accomplish them.
Bonus: My earliest memory is when my mom took me to visit some distant relatives. I looked up their stairs and there was a stained glass window at the landing. I thought it was magical, so I climbed the stairs all the way to the top, where they opened into a sitting room where there was an elderly lady in a chair. She was friendly and gave me candy. My mother, on the other hand, was somewhat less pleased to see me when she found me up there.
Sam Kash (@thesamkash): With Super Adventure Box in Guild Wars 2 over, I’m fumbling around for something to play. Crowfall has me curious with the Hungerdome and for some reason I downloaded Elsword. Outside of MMOs I’ve been playing Narita Boy, a heavily 80s inspired side scrolling adventure. I don’t love the game play, but the animations are astounding.
Bonus: First that comes to mind is getting to school as a kindergartner and walking up to my best friend. He had his hand out with a quarter (or maybe a snack) in it and asked, “Want it?” Just as I reached to take it, he pulled his hand away and uttered, “Can’t touch this!” I didn’t know the song at the time so I didn’t understand fully, but for some reason it’s a memory that’s stuck with me.
Tyler Edwards (blog): About what you’d expect. D&D, Magic: Legends, The Outer Worlds. I made a black/red explosive zombie spam deck in ML, and it’s hilarious. I’m also getting fairly close to unlocking the Necromancer class, which will likely help with said zombie build.
Bonus question: I think my earliest memory is trying my father’s fried potatoes for the first time. My mother was eating a plate of them, and I asked to try one. I ended up liking them so much that they ended up being about half my dinners for the next eight years or so.
Pierre, patron: I hope my WRUP will be captivating as I have at least two short stories to tell you. First, I’ve been playing a lot of The Elder Scrolls Online these days. I have to tell you what happened the other day; it will explain why I really enjoy my time in Tamriel and the phasing system in this game. There’s a lot of quests in this MMO, some of them are more tasks then quests, but most of them are longer and very well written, and can be really moving, especially their endings as you’ll see.
I was helping defending a town with two critical locations to preserve, but those were attacked simultaneously. So I had to choose and could only help defend one of them, helping either a bunch of veteran soldiers led by two really brave dark elf (dunmer) officers or a group of recently trained civilians who hadn’t seen a battlefield before. Logically, I chose to help the villagers, as they seemed to need my help more. The fight was hard, but we won, and the game proposed me to move to another region after that, but instead, I decided to go to the second location to see how my dunmer friends managed to repel the enemy there. And when I arrived, everything was quiet, the battle had been won here too, but after searching for a while, I found the bodies of the two dunmer officers: apparently, they died defending fiercely this part of the town. I felt deeply moved by their sacrifice and somehow regretted my choice. What if I went to help them instead? And it’s because of this kind of attention to details that most of the other players probably didn’t even notice that I like TESO so much.
Bonus question: Another anecdote here. My first childhood memory is a strange, somehow scary one. I don’t remember how old I was, but I was old enough to walk by myself. I remember my room was dark, I was in my bed already and it was the beginning of the night. The day before, I had heard my parents discuss the matter of the danger of electricity. And as I probably already had a taste for experimental work at this time (I’m a research scientist now), I got out of my bed and went to the outlet where a night light was plugged and started touching it. I remember receiving an electrical shock – a small one, don’t worry, but unpleasant enough to learn that it was not a good option to play with electrical outlets. I never did such a thing again. I went back to bed and never mentioned this incident to my parents. Strange memory isn’t it? Dear MOP readers, I hope you enjoyed these little stories and will let us know some of yours in the comments.
Every Saturday, join the Massively OP community and staff for What Are You Playing, our roundup of what MMORPGs and other games we’re hoping to play this weekend (with a bonus question or two for our amusement). Tell us what you’re up to! Go off-topic! And don’t forget to have fun!
