Gaming With The Girlfriend (Part 3)

“Get rid of the map; I can’t see where I’m going!” cries Miss Beanz next to me.

We've just started playing a new Dungeon Defenders level, and foolishly I decided to bring the map up in order to survey the layout. Reluctantly, I close it again to allow the girlfriend to have an unobstructed view of the screen.

"Where do I go?" she asks; a question followed by much palming of the face (mine obviously; domestic violence isn't cool kids!)

As anyone who read my previous entries will no doubt have realised, Miss Beanz isn't the best when it comes to directions, even with the assistance of the map. In one key example, having successfully got to grips (or so I thought) with one of the later levels and survived the initial waves, the on-screen prompt and all too familiar horn alerted us to the fact that one of the ogre mini-bosses had spawned somewhere on the level. I briefly brought up the map to determine which entrance our foe had chosen and alerted her to the situation.

“Up the top” I say.

She proceeds to head up the nearby stairs to reach the highest point of the level.

“Not that ‘top’. The top entrance.”

“Where’s that?”

“North!”

“Which way’s north?”

It is around this time that I resorted to good old fashioned pointing on the map. Thankfully our defenses had succeeded in defeating the ogre and we were able to return our attentions to the other entrances. Following this incident, names for each of the entrances and key locations were devised, which surprisingly Miss Beanz managed to pick up on without me having to tell her what the names applied to: Long Bridge, Short Bridge, Large Stairs, Small Stairs, Tunnel (a prize for anyone who guesses the level).

The whole saga got me thinking on how informal place names are devised and propagated; anyone reading will no doubt be able to think of countless examples of their own, both in games and real-life. Who picks these names, who decides which ones stick and which are discarded, and how do they spread to mass adoption? Ultimately I decided the answers to these questions were beyond my feeble understanding of such topics, and went back to the more pressing matter of killing things and collecting the resultant loot.

Whilst the girlfriend still finds herself in need of in-game sat-nav on occasions, she has developed the ability to continue playing whilst the map is on the screen; and more importantly, finally learnt one of gaming’s key lessons: don’t stand in the lava!