Richter’s Roots in Video Games
Student shares his love for video games and more
February 3, 2023
Senior Case Richter has always loved playing video games, but his passion has deeper roots than that of surface level.
Beginning with watching his dad play flight simulator games, Richter’s attention was quickly caught by the visuals and tactics one would exhibit while playing.
“I was four years old. No, I think I was two because my dad had his old Windows XP and on it, it had this flight simulator, and every day he would be playing it,” Richter said. “It was more of him introducing me to them, and I fell in love with games in particular.”
In reflecting on his favorite way to play, he noted he gets the best experience while playing on computers. Richter went so far to even build his own computer from scratch.
“I built my own computer about two years ago,” Richter said. “It was a lot more than you would spend on your typical console, but with a computer, you get better performance overall, better connectivity, and then wireless services. It was the end of sophomore year, or no, middle of sophomore year, it was Christmas break.”
After a long battle against cancer, one of the last gifts he received from his mom before she passed away was money for him to build this computer.
“We decided that my mom’s last gift to me was going to be $1,000 towards this computer, and I still went over budget and ended up spending $1,700 on the computer,” Richter said.
Richter had thought about making a computer of his own since he was 12 and he even started working for his dad’s company in order to save up money.
“I started really building it after my mom said she would do that as a present for me before she passed away,” Richter said. “So I started coming up with an idea of parts in a list, and there’s a website that you can go on and just basically it says this part fits with this part, these parts work together. They all fit inside of this case. It just helps you make sure you don’t buy anything that doesn’t work.”
He highlighted the plus side of playing on a computer compared to playing on a console.
“So think of Xbox,” Richter said. “They have an internet service where you can play online games with whatever you have to pay, 60 bucks a year or whatever. On a computer it’s free, and so you get connectivity with others for free, better gameplay experience because of better graphics, better performance overall.”
Richter soon found a love for more vintage games in their more detailed creativity aspect rather than newly released games.
“There’s something magical about the game where the focus is on the experience of the game rather than the visual or the story of the game,” Richter said. “But if the emphasis isn’t on the core gameplay mechanics, which makes it fun in the first place, there’s nothing to go on. So an old 90s game, their entire inspiration was drawn on fun rather than making a story or anything of the sorts.”
Richter methodically analyzed and mulled over his favorite games of all time.
“Super Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy, all Pokemon games, Bloodborne, and then Skate 3,” Richter said.
Richter dove deep into what attracted him to his favorite games, explaining his immediate fascination with the incorporation of 3D platforms into gameplay.
“Now you could go in a z direction compared to just x and y so it brought so much more depth and it made you feel like you’re finally able to like go out and be the player rather than being stuck on a 2D side scroller,” Richter said. “Then Mario Galaxy took that innovation to the next level, adding new ideas, adding new mechanics making it just phenomenal, phenomenal.”
Video games provide comfort for Richter and act as an outlet, but he also likes to branch out of his comfort zone and face new obstacles.
“Sometimes I’ll also throw myself in games that I purposely find discomfort in and challenge myself in some games,” Richter said. “Boss battles can take up to 50 tries, three hours apiece, yada yada, so I find comfort in games sometimes, but sometimes I also like finding a challenge.”