Bored Gamers: Mind Over Matter

Jim Devereaux harnesses the power of imagination

There’s a lot to be said for imagination; Nelson Mandela once said: “the power of imagination created the illusion that my vision went much further than the naked eye could see”. A beautiful description, I’m sure you’ll agree.

As a child I often used to lose myself to my imagination staring into a vast blanket of colour; that all-encompassing blue, black, or more often than not, grey sky as seen from my bedroom window.

And as I stare into the little green box that is to be, with a lot of clever digital trickery, the Bored Gamers virtual set, I feel pressured to call upon this power to a far greater extent than to which my poor tired brain can scarcely muster.

As a kid, I can’t say I ever imagined what the set of a TV programme about games that I was going to produce and present some day might look like. But, I did often dream about the kinds of games I wanted to play.

Whatever ideas I had were usually formed of random parts of games I had recently been playing, as if, to my child brain, that would make everything just that little bit more awesome.

For example, if you took Mario with all his amazing super powers and gave him a fast car from my favourite racing game (Grand Prix), that would instantly make him a better character. I, of course, wasn’t the only one to think so, as Super Mario Kart is a timeless classic that I spent roughly equal time playing, and throwing against the wall; frustrated that I couldn’t complete it – fortunately I have grown out of the latter!

“…a vibrant world full of the latest and greatest marvels of technological and artistic wizardry”

Luckily this fleeting reminiscence has proven to be very reassuring, as we race against the clock to get our first show ready for broadcast. That blank green canvas that seemed so daunting upon first sight is nothing of the sort. It is the perfect platform to express the very essence of what we love to do. Play games.

Where I’ll see a green box, you’ll see a vibrant world full of the latest and greatest marvels of technological and artistic wizardry; the finest minds the gaming industry has to offer. With that in mind, it’s hard to imagine anything more exciting. Game on.

Bored Gamers is an hour-long weekly show on all things gaming. Tune in to see it on Latest TV at 9pm every Friday night from 5 September.

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