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One of the most rewarding things about blogging is its community. The simple act of reading, commenting, and following other bloggers, whose interests are similar to your own, leads you to life long friends and supporters you never would have connected with otherwise. And what’s especially great about the WordPress community is the overwhelming warmth and kindness that unfailingly greets you every time you come online, which can sometimes inspire your fellow peers to nominate you for a blogging award.

Cary of Recollections of Play passed on the Sunshine Blogger Award to me, which she got chosen for as well, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. I’ve followed her blog since the time we were both new to blogging and I’m glad to call her a friend.

Blog awards tend to have a certain set of rules that go with being nominated and accepting them. Those rules can be modified slightly from blogger to blogger, and honestly, who even knows what those original rules were when the award was first created? Blog awards are its own new form of the chain letter people used to pass around via email in the earlier days of the Internet, except these are a fun way of asking your favorite bloggers questions that will help you get to know them better after you have shared some information about yourself.

Cary decided that instead of her nominees answering eleven questions like she did, she asked one very specific question for her nominees to answer:

You are stranded on a deserted island. Choose 5-10 instances of the same type of entertainment that you would like to have to pass the time until help arrives. (Assume that no matter what, you magically have whatever TVs, cable outlets, game consoles, movie players, music players, etc. that you might need.)

It’s a really interesting but hard question Cary posed, but I gladly accept the award from her and the challenge to answer.

I took some time to think a lot about the question. Same type of entertainment, huh? If I were deserted on an island, which form of entertainment could I be happy with until rescue (hopefully) arrives? As much as I love watching TV, listening to music, or reading books I easily had to go with video games. If I’m going to be stuck on an island for God knows how long, it better be something I can lose myself in for hours and encourages engagement/interaction of some kind.

Now I’m guessing there’s no limit to which consoles would be with me in this scenario. If there is, well, too bad. I’m going to pretend I have access to all the consoles/portables on this island. The choice of games I’d take wasn’t difficult to think about. I would of course want to have my all-time favorite games to keep me company, but I would want games that I can replay over and over again without getting bored. In no particular order, these are the games I’d be playing on my deserted island:

1. Dragon Age (Xbox)

2. Mass Effect (Xbox)

3. Final Fantasy XV (Xbox)

4. The World Ends With You (Nintendo DS)

5. Fire Emblem Awakening (Nintendo 3DS)

6. Ace Attorney (Nintendo DS)

Here’s where I may be cheating again. Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Ace Attorney are part of a series of games. But I’m counting each of them as sort of one whole game in a set of an ongoing story or world that can’t be played without the others. Besides, no where does the question say limit it to one game from a series. You can see I thought a lot about this question before answering it.

My choice of games make a ton of sense to be the only ones I can play on my hypothetical island because what all these games have in common are as follows:

A. High Replay Value

B. Strong Story

C. Exploration/Open World Gameplay

Probably the Ace Attorney series is a bit of a stretch to call it an open world game, mostly because it isn’t. But it does have an exploration component where you have to interact with objects in the scene during the investigation portions of the game. Looking for clues and evidence is a big part of the Phoenix Wright games, and it does take time to look for everything you need to build a solid defense for your client. It’s the same way it takes time in an open world to look for resources, level up by killing enemies, or complete tasks. You have to explore the area a bit before you can move onto your next objective.

These games have fantastic stories and characters that will keep me occupied for several days or years on an island. Whether it’s going on a road trip in Final Fantasy XV or slaying Darkspawn in the Deep Roads of Dragon Age, it offers exactly what I need—pure escape from a less than ideal situation. Not to mention the worlds you get to wander around in are absolutely gorgeous. Have you seen the worlds in Dragon Age Inquisition or Mass Effect? Breathtaking.

To close off this post, it’s time to nominate a few bloggers to pay this award forward. Here are some bloggers who deserve to be recognized:

I’m going to follow Cary’s lead and just ask one single question instead of multiple ones. And because I’m lazy. If my nominees are up for the challenge, here’s my question:

Which fictional character (books, movies, video games, etc.) would you pick to spend a single day with and where or what would you be doing? If your day means spending it in their world or yours, I want to know details. Are you eating ice cream on the streets of New York City? Or are you fighting alongside them on a battlefield? Go wild with your imaginary scenario. The more fantastical, the better!

Thanks again to Cary for the award and the fun question to answer!