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When you do run-throughs of your favorite classic games, you don’t run from Point A to Point B – you run from Point A to the first secret that you can remember.

I haven’t been here at Bitmob long, but I’m pretty sure that most of you could do complete run-throughs on any classic game of your choosing with your eyes closed. I am also positive that everyone knows the ins and outs of the classic games that they choose to play, along with all its secret bells and whistles (no pun intended).

But how did we learn the secrets?

When I began my gaming obsession in the mid 90’s, there were no YouTube videos that I could turn to about how to skip levels, get secret power-ups  or unlockables. Being an only child at the time didn’t help, either. Being an only child did, however, allow me to go to after school babysitters and Latch-key, where other kids my age had this knowledge.

After deciding to take turns on the community gaming console, all would cluster around the lone player, watching and taking mental notes about which blocks to hit, which door to enter. If the child playing the game had missed a secret, you could be sure that someone within the group would pipe up and tell them, if they hadn’t already taken the controller to do it themselves.

For me, gaming was a physical community in which children of all ages (even kids at heart) learned how to play them. It didn’t matter whether it was one kid who was a couple of years older or a whole slew of us the same age – someone had the secrets. If they were being open and honest with you, they would excitedly point them out; if they were bratty (or an older sibling), they would tip the tables in their favor, beat you with it and then not tell you, leaving you both frustrated and curious.

Because of my years of training, I can no longer play a Mario game without making at least one stop to the Warp Zone, and to this day, I can’t remember who had the courtesy to tell me it was there to begin with.

How did you learn the early secrets of gaming?