Dear Snake,
I've been playing you since before I knew what a game engine was. I played you on a brick of a phone with buttons that clicked loud enough to annoy everyone around me. I played you in waiting rooms, on lunch breaks, in the five minutes before sleep. You were there for all of it.
You Never Changed
Everything else changed. Phones became touchscreens. Games became movies. Genres I loved became sequels I didn't recognise. But you stayed exactly the same: a grid, a line, a dot. I could leave for years and come back and you'd still be there, exactly as I left you, asking nothing more of me than to pay attention.
You Were Always Honest
You never lied to me. When I died, it was my fault. When I survived, it was my skill. You never gave me unfair advantages or punished me for luck. The grid was always neutral. The rules were always the same. In a world full of systems designed to manipulate me, you were always just a game.
You Fit in the Gaps
Life has a lot of gaps — between things, between thoughts, between people. You fit in those gaps perfectly. Not demanding, not overwhelming, not asking for thirty hours of commitment to understand. Just there, in the margin, small and perfect and always ready.
You Will Outlive Us All
Long after the games of today are forgotten — their servers shut down, their DLC delisted, their online modes unplayable — you'll still work. You don't need a server. You don't need a subscription. You need a screen and something to move. That's it. In the archives of human play, you're among the most durable things we've ever made.
Thank you, Snake. For the wasted afternoons and the sharpened focus and the quiet joy of a long run going right. For teaching me that the best things in life are often the simplest.
With love,
Every player who ever pressed restart one more time.