@qglas​ and I used to play Goldeneye 007 multiplayer a lot. Like...a lot a lot. We used the Library and the Caves when we had a friend over, and we had a sort of game-in-game thing going for the one where you could escape to the little outdoor snowy area where I would try to book it outside and also blow out the console screens on the way, that’s faint as hell, but mostly?

We were all about the Facility.

I mean ABOUT it. We could only go on one alternate map for a match or two before one of us going “Facility?” and the other agreeing. It’s a good map, it’s essentially the entire first level of the game, there are a lot of fun areas to run off to, but I think mostly it was because there was a spawn point that put you in the vent above the bathroom, at which point whoever was unlucky enough to end up in there would be left without weapons and only one exit, where the other would be waiting to commit the murder act. Since it was couch gaming, this led to endless “COME OUT I JUST WANNA HUG YOU”/”NO” stalling and giggling and throwing knives being launched threateningly into the ceiling. It was just good times.

After a few skrillion matches, we expanded our play style out of necessity. Explosives were always on the menu. I locked myself in a bathroom stall, threw a grenade at the door, and went out in a blaze of glory screaming “THAT ONE BOUNCED, THAT ONE BOUNCED” like I could have expected anything else. I became a proximity mine fiend, trapping doorways and laying trails that would set off one after the other, and then get bored hiding and see how many I could stack on a wall before the act of throwing one blew them all up. I learned not to fire a grenade launcher in a closed corridor, or aim it straight up in an open one. I accumulated more Lemming Awards than White Wilderness.

But nothing will ever beat Megan’s top strat. Ever.

We were playing on a Sunday, business as usual, and I was chasing her through the facility when she suddenly broke off to a set of doorways you could run around in a tight loop, and started circling, sing-songing “Kvack, kvack, kvack” like the little German duck we had both seen that morning. Three years younger and given to Imagination Games, I did what ducks do--I fell in line circling behind her and joined in the call, the both of us on a futon going “KVACK, KVACK, KVACK” just as happy as if we were in our right minds.

This continued, by my reckoning, for about three seconds, at which point she stopped quacking and spun in a 180 to face me. Stunned into silence, I stared back, gun at my side.

And she shot me in the god. damned. face.

I don’t remember what I said, because it was not full syllables, and I was too young to cuss. All I know is that we choked on our own laughter and I eventually got out a WHY and she kept saying I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU FELL FOR THAT, I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU FELL FOR THAT, and the rest of the day we chased each other around the house going KVACK KVACK KVACK. It was a golden day.

Neither of us has ever forgotten it, but as the years went on, I was the one who continued gaming. Megan still plays games with me, but it’s always been a pastime for her and an obsession for me--no bad blood, just how we grew up.

Except fast forward twenty-some years, I start playing Dead By Daylight, and it turns out the first mechanic you learn to stay alive OR to kill--the very first thing--

--is called looping.

Dead By Daylight is asymmetrical. The four Survivors can’t hurt the Killer, but they’re substantially faster, and they can vault obstacles with ease. Three Survivors will work on repairing generators to escape and the last will bait the Killer into loops to buy time, running tightly around obstacles in circles that only end if the Killer catches up or gives up. This is not just something that happens,, this is not an advanced strat, it is expected and part of gameplay every match. 

As a Killer, I can spend 80-99% of a match looping.

And every...single...time...I think...

I love you, Megan. Thank you for letting me be your Player 2 <3

It seems European ducks have similar dialects; the Swedish duck sounds very similar to the Transylvanian duck, apparently. . .