Super Mario Bros 2

1989, Age 7

This was the first video game that I beat all by myself without my brother's help. I was drawn to it by the intricacies of the world, visually, and the uniqueness of the characters and monsters. Many of my childhood drawings were populated with characters from this game.

I remember the fact that I got to choose which character I played was extremely important to me (and of course I always picked Toad, because he was the farthest from human I could get).