I lament that these kinds of rogue explorations are less and less available to kids these days. Sure in many senses there's much more in the space to engage with, powerful tools like scratch and now LLMs to answer every question but I suspect most kids today will be nostalgic for some mobile game they have no agency to explore outside the rails or some online game that will ban you for cheating.
Contrast that with experiences like the author and the taboo joys of rooting around in the files and "hacking" something to do the thing you want.
The best selling game of all time is relatively recent and supremely hackable/mod-friendly. It also contains gameplay elements that simulate electricity and logic gates. People have built computers in-game.
Not sure how old the author is in the story, I imagine them at like 8-11 ish. I don't have kids so maybe my view is too narrow but of the peers I do have with kids near that range I don't think I know any of them that have a "computer".
many of them play minecraft but as far as I'm aware it's entirely on tablets.
Granted the vanilla experience offers lots of exploration and creativity beyond nearly anything I grew up with but it's still not the same feeling of roguish discovery described by the article.
ticulatedspline · · focus · HN ↗
Contrast that with experiences like the author and the taboo joys of rooting around in the files and "hacking" something to do the thing you want.
aaronax · · focus · HN ↗
Minecraft
ticulatedspline · · focus · HN ↗
many of them play minecraft but as far as I'm aware it's entirely on tablets.
Granted the vanilla experience offers lots of exploration and creativity beyond nearly anything I grew up with but it's still not the same feeling of roguish discovery described by the article.