How do the games you played as a kid affect you now?

To the influx of people who signed up because of neopets-- what pushed you to find your old account? Is it purely nostalgia, or is there another reason? What aspects of neopets have drawn you back in?

And if there's another website/computer game/videogame that had a huge effect on you as a kid, talk about that here too!

I'm just curious because I've been quarantined for the better part of six months now, and one of the ways I've coped is by going back to the games, TV, movies, and other content that I loved growing up. It's been a cool experience to revisit them with a new perspective, and I'm often surprised by how much they've affected the types of stories I tell and the art I create.

I started playing neopets when I was 10, and I wasn't allowed to play video games as a kid, so my experience with digital story telling was mainly this website, which I find most compelling because of all the layers of content buried in it-- random events, comics, exclusive items. As a kid, coming onto the website sort of at its peak, I felt like I was slowly gathering pieces of a great big story. Now as an adult, I can look back and see them as devices to open up new "worlds" or pages on the site, and keep players hooked in with seemingly "new" content, even though nothing was drastically changing. It's the same three or four shop styles pasted on a new themed world. But it totally sparked my creativity at the time, to play games and filling the story gaps and imagine my neopet as its own character in the world.

It's funny now, because a lot of AAA video games are judged on their lifelike graphics, comprehensive storytelling, and overall immersive qualities. But the truth is, humans have a tremendous talent for meeting a story halfway and immersing themselves on their own. Idk.. am I just talking out of my a** here?