I was only six years old when I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I still remember that day like it was yesterday – it was Christmas Eve of 1985, and my parents, my older sister, my baby brother and I were all resting in the living room, spending quality time together. We were never very religious at all, but we still liked to treat Christmas as a family holiday, to celebrate our own connection rather than the birth of a man who may or may not have lived 2000 years ago. Sure, it sounds sappy now, but remember – it was the 80s, and I was six years old, and considering my parents’ schedules, Christmas time was one of the very few ones in which all of us were together, so I was ecstatic. All of a sudden, my dad just goes “You know what? I’ll make you kids a deal – you can open one of the presents tonight instead of tomorrow, but I get to pick which one. Deal?” My sister and I immediately went “Of course”, because what kid wouldn’t? My father nodded, crouched down next to the Christmas tree and pulled out a rather large, neatly wrapped box. We opened it, and lo and behold, it was a brand-new Nintendo Entertainment System! “What’s that thing?”, my 10 year old sister asked, clearly not impressed by this gray piece of hardware. “You can play arcade games on this, except on the TV”. My sister immediately went “NO WAY!”, while I personally, having never even seen an arcade cabinet before, found myself way more entertained by the robot that came included with the system (also known as R.O.B.).
My dad and my sister plugged the gray box into the TV (with quite a lot of effort, mind you – since our cable for TV was secured pretty tightly and required unbolting, believe it or not) while I was perfectly happy to just play with my new robot – for all I cared my sister could keep the box, I just wanted R.O.B.! Finally, with a whole lot of effort, the NES was all set up. My dad, who already knew all about the system thanks to his best friend, who worked in retail (in fact, his whole scheme of “Let’s open this today and not tomorrow” was specifically because he knew that if it was faulty he could exchange it for a new one today and not damage our Christmas with a non functioning gift), quickly inserted the “Super Mario Bros.” cart into the system and pressed the Power button. Some funny images showed up on the screen, like a cartoon with no plot and a particularly low budget. Since I was a little bit slow to get things as a kid, it actually took me five more minutes to realize that the funny Italian plumber jumping around on the screen was actually being controlled by my sister. That’s when I realized just why this gray box had been so important – it played cartoons that you could control! My six year old brain just blew up right then and there. We’re talking full-on mouth-gaping, little eyes in awe, trying to comprehend the whole new world that had just been revealed to me.
Just then, at that precise moment, I knew that whatever I was going to be working on, it was going to be THAT. I didn’t care if I’d be making it, writing about it, selling it or just shouting about it on the streets with a megaphone and a sign, but my entire career was going to be related to that. Almost 30 years later, I’m happy to say that I have done three of those things, but which ones I leave to you. Well, alright, I’ll give you a hint – I’ve written articles for several gaming sites and one physical magazine, none of which ever became particularly big, but let’s just say I’ve worn a lot of different hats in this industry. “Smudo” is my latest attempt at a publication, and this time, I’m going to be my own boss. You can expect reviews, news, editorials, all the good stuff that you see on big sites suck as Kotaku and Polygon, except, well, from me. Let’s see how it goes, shall we? As for why I chose the name “Smudo”… Let’s just say that it’s a reference to something. To what, though, I’ll leave a mystery. Keep guessing, kids!
-John Cox