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Finally Christmas day was upon Thomas as he opened the cardboard box displaying the red-emblazoned logo "Nintendo" with utter glee. Inside was a "Brand New" Nintendo console, two controllers, a mess of wires and a game gun called the "Zapper". And there was something else in the box as well. Digging a little deeper Thomas found that the Nintendo had not only given him the system but a free game as well which was a combination game cartridge containing Super Mario Bros. and a game called Duck Hunt. To make this deal even better for Thomas was that fact that his mother had purchased two additional Nintendo games to be played on the system as well as she did not know that the system itself provided a game inside the box. So instead of just getting one game, Thomas received three games, Four if you counted Duck Hunt. The two additional games were Contra and a game called The Legend of Zelda.
Thomas could barely contain his excitement bordering close to symptoms of rabid insanity. Thomas' mother offered to help him set up the Nintendo, but Thomas wanted to do everything himself and to figure out everything that the his very own Nintendo was capable of.
Thomas would play each of his games for hours. If only his mother had known that Thomas would become this addicted to video games, she probably would have reconsidered her decision to purchase it. However, unfortunately for his mother, it was already too late and Pandora's Box had been opened. Twice over in fact. He was able to finally complete the entire game of Super Mario Bros. Fairly easily in fact, as he was able to master it well. However Zelda and Contra provided an adequate challenge to Thomas' level of video game playing skill. With Contra it was all about manual dexterity and strategy whereas Zelda, which was a game designed to be played for a much longer period of time, offered puzzles, exploration and other unique challenges. Thomas' Mother still to this day remembers the themes from Super Mario Bros. and the Legend of Zelda. Especially with Zelda, Thomas would play for hours, sometimes all day long up into the night and sometimes without sleep. Yes, Thomas did not get much sleep during his visits to his mother's house, for he would stay up all night long playing his Zelda. Eventually Thomas' mother would wise up to the fact that he was playing games for so long and could see the light that the television screen was emitting from crack underneath the door to Thomas' bedroom. If such a fact were made apparent, Thomas' mother would open the door and immediately express that Thomas turn the game off and go to bed. However, Thomas was already far too addicted at this stage in his video game playing experiences, and with Zelda especially and he was left with no other option than to find a way to counter this problematic situation. Thomas meticulously designed a series of sheets of paper colored completely with black crayon which he carefully taped together to the bottom crevice of the door as to provide the necessary cover to prevent the light of the television screen from being seen from outside.
Fortunately for Thomas, this tactic proved to be very successful and he was finally able to finish the entire game, which subsequently happened to be in the middle of early morning.
Upon his return to his Father's house, the rule was still in place that the Nintendo console stay with his mother. This of course only fueled Thomas' desire to play his new Nintendo even more, which meant that more hours would be spent playing games at his mother's house during visits. And this became routine, Thomas would visit his mother's house, rent various games from the local video store with the intent of finishing them completely within one rental period. Usually this plan would work well for Thomas allowing him to completely finish at least two games each visit to his mother's house. In the mean time, during his longer period of time spent at his father's house, Thomas would use much of his free time setting up various video game scenarios using figures such as G.I.Joe, Ninja Turtles, Transformers to make pretend video games, characters, plots and goals.
These were usually set up in the fashion of a specific video game genre known as "brawlers", or "beat'em up" games. Thomas would often think of himself as a video game designer in respect to this unique thought process. For Thomas it was no longer just "playing with toys" but rather using creativity and imagination to fuel his desire to play and design his own types of video games. Unfortunately for Thomas, given his highly addictive nature to video games, these kinds of habits would undoubtedly serve as a starting point for what Thomas would later call "Video Game Projects".
Thomas eventually saved up his allowance enough to purchase a year's subscription to the newest and most popular of the video game magazines at the time, "Nintendo Power". It was through his subscription to Nintendo Power that Thomas could gather the latest previews, reviews, tips and tricks and find out about what games he should play next which furthered the desire to play these games on the next visit to his mother's house.
There also happened to be a animated television program for children around Thomas' age which featured many characters based on popular Nintendo franchises called, "Captain N: The Game Master". Thomas would always make time available to watch Captain N and take note of his favorite characters and game franchises as to what he might consider playing later on when opportunity presented itself. One particular character from the show was called, Mega Man. Mega Man was a robot that fought against other robots that were similar in design that were invented by a mad scientist named, Dr. Wily.
Both the show and Nintendo Power highly praised the Mega Man franchise as "must play" games and Thomas was reeled in to this series hook, line and sinker. On his next visit to his mother's house Thomas rented Mega Man 2 and instantly fell in love with the series which in turn opened up an entirely new level of addiction and loyalty to Mega Man games, the likes anyone could ever even hope to understand. From this point on, when Thomas wasn't playing Mega Man games on his Nintendo, he would be drawing Mega Man characters, robots, stages, boss machines, Dr.Wily fortresses (known simply as Skull Castles since Dr. Wily had a thing for designing his abodes with robot skulls) and of course plots.
There were many Mega Man drawings that surfaced during this period of time and a certain contest issued by Nintendo Power to have gamers across the United States submit their drawings and plot schemes to Nintendo Power in hopes that they may be judged in a contest and perhaps be placed within the latest game in the series, Mega Man 5. Thomas dreamed of winning this contest and he made several of these drawings and ideas and sent them in to Nintendo Power. Unfortunately for Thomas he never did hear anything back from Nintendo Power for his entry, however to Thomas' surprise the plot of the fifth installment of the Mega Man series did in fact use an element of an idea that he had submitted involving a kidnaping of one of the franchise's major characters. Of course, the developers of Mega Man 5 probably never even saw the content that Thomas sent in, but Thomas likes to think that his idea somehow got implemented in the game and none but the creator of Mega Man himself could tell him otherwise. But the drawings didn't stop there. No. For Thomas, this was simply the beginning of his art related to video games which included plots and mock-up game designs for Zelda games, Metroid games and many other games such as a game called Crystalis, which still to this day happens to be Thomas' favorite Nintendo game.
Thomas even made his very own wooden sword replica of the Crystalis sword and used to pretend that he himself was a character in a video game such as the hero from the Zelda franchise, Link. Thomas' imagination ran wild and as it was left unchecked, only grew to new heights causing more and more video game related projects to emerge over time. This would be made apparent by the audio mix tapes that Thomas would create of various video game melodies in which Thomas would hum along to the songs which would take him back to the nostalgia of the time when he was actually playing the games. It was hopeless for Thomas at this point. If only therapy had been started prior to this, perhaps Thomas could have been eased off of his video game addiction. However at this point in Thomas' life, most therapists are afraid that Thomas might actually succeed in making them into video game addicts themselves.