Blind Travels

It’s strange how something as simple as sound can define your life. For some people, it’s the rhythm of waves, the hum of a familiar street, or the voices of family echoing through a childhood home. For me, it was the sound of a quarter clinking into an arcade slot and the deep, bassy hum of a machine waiting for a player. That sound was a call to adventure, and I answered it more times than I can count.

I spent most of my life in orbit around video games, playing them, making them, living them. They gave me purpose, success, and a sense of belonging. They also gave me an addiction that would follow me for decades, one that would eventually be ripped away in an instant the day I lost my vision. This isn’t a cautionary tale told from a pulpit; it’s an honest look at how passion and addiction can wear the same face, and how one day, they might trade places without you realizing it.

The Spark: Space Wars and the First Hit

It was 1977, the same year Star Wars hit theaters, and I was a kid completely obsessed with all things space. My mom read a newspaper article one morning about a new kind of interactive “space game” available to play at a comic shop across town. She didn’t know it, but that ride after school would chart the trajectory of my entire life.

The comic shop smelled like paper and dust, that particular aroma only old comics can make, and tucked in the corner was a glowing machine that looked like something from another world. The marquee read Space Wars. The game itself was simple: two ships battling in the void, each player trying to outmaneuver the other while a tiny gravitational star pulled everything toward oblivion.

From a technical standpoint, Space Wars was revolutionary. It used vector graphics, sharp glowing lines drawn directly by an electron beam instead of pixels. But what I remember most wasn’t the technology, it was the sound. Deep, satisfying explosions that echoed through the game’s single speaker, each blast accompanied by a click of the control buttons that felt mechanical, heavy, important. Each quarter bought only a brief moment of play, a small slice of escape, but those moments were magic.

I can still recall the rhythmic tapping of the buttons, the same click I sometimes hear in my mind when I type today. Maybe that’s why writing has always been both comforting and dangerous for me. That day, Space Wars didn’t just hook me; it rewired me. It was joy, escape, and control all at once. A few days later, I was dreaming about the game, replaying the sounds in my head. By that Friday, I was back at the shop, quarters in hand. I didn’t know it yet, but I had taken my first hit of something I’d spend a lifetime chasing.

The Paper Route and the Atari 2600

My sister bought me an Atari 2600 for Christmas in 1977, and that sealed the deal. Suddenly, I didn’t have to go anywhere for my fix, the games had come home. My paper route became less about responsibility and more about funding my growing need for digital odyssey.

I started with Adventure and Combat, two of the earliest and most defining titles. Adventure was a revelation: the idea of exploring a world, finding hidden objects, and solving puzzles without instructions felt like pure freedom. I solved it before cheat guides were even a thing. Combat was my social game — I’d rope anyone into playing, friends, neighbors, my sister. Every battle was one more hit of dopamine, one more reason to stay in.

At first, it felt harmless. But slowly, things began to shift. I wasn’t meeting friends outside anymore. I’d play before school, after school, all weekend. When I wasn’t playing, I was reading the backs of game boxes at Toys “R” Us, imagining what they’d feel like to play. There were no gaming magazines yet, so the box art and screenshots were my entire window into new worlds.

Looking back now, I can see the pattern forming, an early version of what psychologists today call Gaming Disorder. The World Health Organization defines it as the loss of control over gaming, prioritizing it above other life interests, and continuing despite negative consequences. That description might as well have been written about my teenage years.

Still, at the time, it didn’t feel like a problem. It felt like belonging.

From Radio to Atari: Validation Through Addiction

For a while, I managed to pull away. I fell in love with radio, my first real dream. The control board, the mics, the hum of the equipment, it was still about sound, but it was different. Then, when the radio job ended, I stumbled into a temporary gig testing video games for Atari. I figured it would pay the bills until I found another radio job. It turned out to be the perfect storm.

The test department was like an addiction incubator. Everyone lived and breathed games. We played all day at work, then played at home all night, then came in early to play again. We even had a name for it: game stamina. Those who couldn’t handle marathon sessions didn’t last long. Those who did were admired, or pitied, depending on who you asked.

When I moved from testing to production, my justification evolved. I told myself I was playing everything, for research. After all, how could you make great games without studying what was already out there? The higher my salary climbed, the more I fed the habit. New consoles, new games, imported cartridges — all “for work.”

But underneath it all, the addiction was hiding in plain sight. I wasn’t just playing. I was chasing the same sense of escape that Space Wars gave me back in that comic shop.

The irony was brutal: the industry I loved not only enabled my addiction but rewarded it. The more I played, the more valuable I became.

The Day Everything Went Dark

I don’t remember the impact as much as I remember the silence after it. One moment we were driving down the 405 freeway in Los Angeles, thinking about a sound effect I wanted to record for a project, and the next there was twisted metal and nothing but ringing. The car accident took away my sight, and in one brief, cruel instant, everything I had built around gaming — my career, my passion, my identity, was gone.

When the doctors told me the vision loss was permanent, I felt something close to disbelief, but it wasn’t denial. It was rage. Rage at the universe, at the driver who hit me, at my body for failing, and at the cruel irony that I, someone who built worlds meant to be seen, could no longer see them. The grief came later, but the rage was immediate and all-consuming.

For someone whose life had revolved around pixels, polygons, and screens, blindness was a forced exile. There were no support groups for “gamers who suddenly can’t game.” I tried to keep up for a while, following news about new consoles, upcoming releases, and reviews. But every headline felt like a twist of the knife. Reading about some brilliant new title I’d never experience was unbearable. It was like watching your friends go to a concert you’d been waiting for all year — and realizing you’ll never hear the band again.

Eventually, I stopped reading. I stopped talking to people from the industry. I shut it all out.

Cold Turkey

In addiction recovery, they talk about withdrawal. With gaming, it’s harder to explain, there’s no hangover, no shakes, no physical detox. But the mental toll? It’s brutal. I dreamed about games every night for years. I’d wake up and for a split second, I’d forget I was blind. I’d reach for the imaginary controller, feel the phantom buttons beneath my fingers, then open my eyes to darkness.

I avoided arcades, game stores, even movie theaters, anywhere that familiar 8-bit soundtrack might ambush me. But the world had other ideas. One day I walked past a pizza parlor, and there it was — the Dig Dug attract mode. That familiar boop-boop rhythm. I froze. That game, that sound, it was in every arcade I’d ever loved. I stood there, listening, and it felt like someone was peeling away the scab on a wound I thought had healed.

Rage first. Then grief. Then a kind of hollow acceptance. I had to live with the fact that the one thing that had always brought me joy now only caused pain.

Two Decades of Silence

I intentionally cut everyone connected to gaming out of my life. I didn’t want the reminders — the nostalgia, the “remember when” conversations. Friends would reach out, but I couldn’t bear to hear about new games or consoles. I wanted to move on, but it felt like I had amputated part of my soul.

The dreams continued for nearly ten years. Every night, some new variation of the same thing — playing, competing, exploring worlds I could no longer see. My subconscious wouldn’t let me escape.

The World Health Organization’s research on Gaming Disorder talks about how the same reward systems in the brain light up for gaming as they do for substances — dopamine, anticipation, the high of progress. I didn’t need a study to tell me that. My brain had been trained since that first coin drop to chase reward through games. When that was gone, there was nothing to replace it.

That emptiness is the quietest kind of addiction — one that doesn’t kill you, but leaves you standing still while life moves on.

The Return: Portland Retro Gaming Expo

More than twenty years later, I got a call from an old friend, someone I’d worked with back in the Atari and Accolade days. He said there was going to be a 30th anniversary celebration for the Jaguar system, and he wanted me to join a panel. I said no without hesitation.

But he kept asking.

Eventually, I said yes, more out of exhaustion than excitement. I told myself it would be one quick panel, then back to silence.

The moment I stepped onto the Portland Retro Gaming Expo floor, I knew I had made a mistake. The sound hit me first — hundreds of arcade cabinets, all alive at once. The Asteroids explosions, the Pac-Man chomp, and then, like a cruel joke, the attract mode for Dig Dug. That sound had followed me for decades, and here it was again. My heart sank. I felt like the world was reminding me what I’d lost.

Still, I did the panel. I talked about Tempest 2000, Kasumi Ninja, Test Drive Offroad, the long nights of debugging and deadlines, and the joy of seeing players connect with something you built. Afterward, people came up to thank me. They shared stories of how my games shaped their childhoods, their friendships, even their careers. I listened, smiled, and thanked them — all while fighting back the sting of knowing I could never again share that same experience.

But something else happened too. For the first time in years, I felt a strange kind of peace. Maybe the games I made were still doing their job. Maybe I didn’t have to play them anymore — maybe creating them had been enough.

The Bittersweet Aftermath

Since that day, I’ve attended more conventions, spoken on more panels, and reconnected with the community I thought I’d lost forever. It’s still hard — every time I walk into the free arcade area, it feels like walking into a liquor store where every drink is free, but you can’t have a single sip. The nostalgia is intoxicating, but also painful.

The sounds are the hardest. The hum of a CRT monitor, the coin return clink, even the smell of popcorn in the air — all of it takes me back to the arcades where it all began. The sensory memory is so strong that I can still feel the joystick under my hand. The difference is, now I’m a spectator in a world that used to be mine.

When the ache gets too strong, I tell fans something simple: “Go play a game for me.” I tell them to walk over to a Dig Dug machine and play one round while I listen. In that moment, I can live through their joy — the same joy I used to chase.

Everything Happens for a Reason

My mom used to tell me that everything happens for a reason. I didn’t believe her for a long time. But looking back now, I can see how the loss that once destroyed me eventually opened a new path. Losing my sight forced me to find a new way to see.

Today, alongside my wife I create tactile art, photography that can be felt through touch. The process lets people who are blind or visually impaired experience images in a new way. It’s the closest thing to giving sight back, not through eyes, but through hands. Maybe this was the reason all along — that I had to lose one way of seeing to discover another.

Still, the wound never fully heals. Every retro gaming expo is a reminder of both what I lost and what I gained. When I hear those familiar bleeps and explosions, it still hurts. But now, the pain sits beside gratitude.

Because for all the years I spent playing, making, and losing games, I learned something that transcends them all: the power of creation, the resilience of memory, and the beauty of connection — even when the screen goes dark.