Power Up at the Science Museum; or why video games are the new playing out for adults and kids alike

It was the second day after the year’s hottest and the stifling heat had yet to break. The kids, demob happy on the second to last day of term met me, with Tom on the platform of South Kensington tube, following early drinks with work colleagues. I was two G and Ts and a Pimms merry and glad for an excuse not to embarrass myself  with my new work colleagues, and it was still only six p.m. on a midsummer’s night.

Jonah, who’d auditioned for a famous Hollywood director’s latest project that day, and so had had the morning off with Tom, was, as usual recalcitrant about the experience. And despite Ava’s school carnival that day, she wouldn’t be drawn on the subject  either – both were end-of-year tired, and doing anything on a school night, however close to the holidays, always feels a little ambitious – especially when it’s at the opposite end of the central line to home.

So, last week when I received an invite to the opening night of Power Up at the Science Museum, I did my usual trick of not reading the details. Instead, I forwarded it to Tom, who, as if he doesn’t have enough on his plate, what with being my husband, our children’s father, and picking up the financial pieces of a possible break up with EU, is always good for a quick decision on whether or not something is worth going to or not.

On this, he was adamant. The kids will LOVE it, he said. And so they did.
What I had failed to read in the invite was that this showcase of video games past and future (I’d zoned out by the word video game) would be clearly right up my mini game addicts’ strasse – and given they have to get it from somewhere, their father’s to boot.

But in the event, it felt a long walk from the tube, even walking overground, in 29 degrees at the end of a long day.The only thing that kept them motivated was chasing West London’s Pokeballs, which naturaly enough, seemed a better quality to that which can be found East.
But even the thrill of going into the museum after hours couldn’t salve Ava’s weary feet, when walking anywhere in such a large building in such heat seems, aged seven, to take so long.

But as we were whisked through into a dimly lit hall fanked with banks of flashing screens, the kids noticeably perked up. A serving of fizzy pop also worked wonders, and despite the closeness of the room, both kids suddenly looked as if all had been worth it. Navigating through games for all ages – a maracas and drum game (you’ll have to forgive my ignorance – I’m not up to speed on the latest consoles – past banks of arcade games, Halo, Sonic and Pacman, we abandoned the kids, naturally enough at the back, in their generational comfort zone of Minecraft while we went in search of the pizza that had been promised in the invite. 

We were not disappointed. They kept the slices flowing all evening, which, along with the larger than life gaming characters that stalked amid the computer rows, says much about the demographic: kidults and closet nerds of all ages. Buoyed up on pepperoni and jelly beans, we encouraged the kids to try out some games from Tom’s past – my lack of skill at racing games, fighting games and even good old fashioned eating games, leaving me rather all at sea in this tribute to digital dexterity. 

But, even while Ava’s school books, newly returned home this week, demonstrated a genetic tendency to my own coordination issues, manifested as truly dreadful handwriting, having grown up with an older brother who has spent much of his childhood glued to a screen, she was soon beating him to a pulp in old versions of Street Fighter, though she clearly has also inherited my lack of ability to drive a pixelated car in a straight line.
Jonah and Tom, though, were in their element, testing out cutting edge virtual reality football games with as much enthusiasm as they played old fashioned Donkey Kong. But for me, who has long since felt left behind by the video game revolution, it was an interesting potted history of how much technology has changed over the last 25 or so years – and how quickly it moves on.

What really made the night for me was bumping into not one, but two faces I know in actual life – though admittedly one I only really know from my digital footprint – a parenting blogger by the name of Papa Tont, who I follow on Twitter, and who was there with his wife and kids courtesy of Carousel, the same PR company who’d sent me my invite. The other was the kid’s old childminder Lizzie, who we’ve not seen since she abandoned us with a week’s notice to start an internship, but who popped up out of nowhere just as we finally conceded the heat and fizz had all become too much and were about to leave.

For all she’d spent mcuh of last summer with the kids, only Jonah seemed to recognise her, especially when she put on a Minecraft box head and took to fighting him with a foam sword. But Ava, who’d seemed to have something of a girl crush on her at the time – so much so, my working parent’s jealousy was piqued , said she couldn’t remember her at all. Perhaps it’s because she spent so much of that time with her face buried in her screen that the people who happen to be into the background fade into insignificance. So much for early childhood influences.
If anything can be said to be true, then, it’s that my kids’ childhoods, for good or ill, have truly been shaped by video games. And, as this retrospective shows, it’s probably no better or worse than any other cultural fad that passes through the ether – in fact, possibly better than the passive pursuits of my old childhood. Jane Eyre, then has as much (or as little) cultural significance as Sonic the Hedgehog, and it’s time we pseudointellectuals acknowledge this and learn to embrace it.

I was grateful, though, when we exited the sticky darkness of the twilight hall to get out into the fading sun and sightly fresher air, where Tom had to caution Jonah against walking headlong into the road of Kensington’s un-demarcated streets trying to chase Pokemon. This latest digital fad may kids outside in the fresh air this summer, but at least at home on Minecraft, they aren’t likely to be hit by a real life car. But, as Tom says, it’s much worse in the City, where bankers pour out of glass towers for a break from their five or so screens, only to spend all their lunchtimes capturing virtual creatures that appear on their phone cameras.

There are pluses and minuses to everything then, and for all I, personally just don’t get the fulfillment to be had from the arbitrary goals inherent in the games that capture my children’s attention, this hands-on exhibition, where grown-ups and children can play in harmony alongside each other, sharing each other’s cultural references, does show that gaming is as much an evolving art form as any other and my kids may as well be a part of it, rather than like me, defiantly out of sync.