{"id":33,"date":"2018-03-14T12:05:47","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T12:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gamesforall.net\/?page_id=33"},"modified":"2018-03-19T12:43:56","modified_gmt":"2018-03-19T12:43:56","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/gamesforall.net\/index.php\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello and welcome to Games for All<\/b>!<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m so glad you\u2019ve found this blog and I\u2019m hoping to help you out….but\u00a0what exactly am I helping you with I hear you cry?\u00a0 I want to help you\u00a0discover your character and\u00a0skills for life through gaming.\u00a0\u00a0And\u00a0give you pointers to\u00a0help your children\/partners\/friends do so to.\u00a0 For parents\u00a0in particular I\u00a0hope this blog will give you an insight into what on Earth your children are talking about when they discuss their\u00a0gaming hobby, and perhaps give you some alternative games to suggest when they want one that makes you feel uncomfortable to buy them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For ease I will refer to everything as \u2018your\u2019 though as I said this is something you can use for yourself or to help your children \/partner\/acquaintances\/alien overlords\/puppies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
This is me!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before I get started with that though I guess I should introduce myself.\u00a0 I\u2019m Stephen Taylor, a massive geek who\u00a0loves 3 things in my life:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. My Family\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
    1. Games\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        \n
      1. Jesus\/God\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

        My Family<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

        My family\u00a0is my lovely wife Catherine, my Mum and Dad, my brother Alistair, his wife and sons…. And my 2 cats Bonnie and\u00a0Meeka. Though we do have a tiny Taylor on the way soon!\u00a0\u00a0Having a child on the way made me think of how I could meaningfully share my love of games and geeky ness with her in a way that wouldn\u2019t just involve me saying \u2018oh my goodness\u00a0look\u00a0at these fancy graphics and\u00a0can you see how awesome this story is?!\u00a0\u2018 But\u00a0could I use games to help\u00a0her understand the world, understand herself and explore her faith?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

        I looked all over the\u00a0interwebs\u00a0for the answer. There\u2019s a lot of the\u00a0interwebs, and many topics covered but I couldn\u2019t quite find what I was looking for.\u00a0So\u00a0I figured \u2018hey, why not try creating it yourself?\u2019 and well here we are!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

        How is it I could possibly know enough to talk about games with any level of authority? Let alone use them for teaching life skills?\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

        I have been an avid gamer since I was born. I think, I\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0remember that far back but some of my earliest memories are of sitting at my Big\u00a0Gramps\u2019\u00a0house\u00a0(that\u2019s what I called my Grandad, I don\u2019t know why, I was 2 when I came up with it)\u00a0in the spare room playing\u00a0R-type<\/a>\u00a0and various other DOS games.\u00a0 As I grew up we always had a computer\u00a0and I remember getting in trouble in primary school because I knew how to boot the computer up faster than the teacher and before she knew it I was on Encarta\u00a095\u00a0playing the awesome\u00a0medieval themed trivia quiz\u00a0Mind Maze<\/a>. I always loved games, I went through a\u00a0pokemon\u00a0obsessions, a Yu-Gi-Oh obsession, my Auntie worked for Wizards of the Coast for a bit so I got Magic the Gathering cards for free\u00a0every now and then, my brother and I got into Warhammer 40k\u00a0–\u00a0 Black Templars\u00a0were amazing, just saying \u2013 we\u00a0had the majority of the home consoles from mega drive onwards.<\/p>\n

        \"\"
        Final Fantasy 8<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

        But the first game I truly loved was Final Fantasy 8.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what it was about it \u2013 it could\u2019ve been\u00a0that I was a little bit\u00a0emo, or a \u2018mosher\u2019 as we were called back then\u00a0\u2013\u00a0but I sunk hours into that game. It sparked a massive love for Japanese roleplaying games that I still have to this day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n

        I\u2019ve had all the\u00a0playstations, and all the\u00a0xbox\u2019s\u00a0bar the one\u00a0and\u00a0at the moment\u00a0I have been playing a lot of Monster Hunter World.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

        \"\"
        Adrenaline board game<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

        As for table top gaming it has always been a passion of mine, but sadly I haven\u2019t really had many people to play them with.\u00a0My brother and I would go to games workshop on a Saturday for the large games\u00a0with other people\u00a0and\u00a0we would\u00a0often make characters for dungeons and dragons. But we never had a GM to run it for us. Or enough players to be the GM ourselves.\u00a0At university I had a whole new world of boardgames open up\u00a0infront\u00a0of me and I\u2019ve never looked back. My current personal favourite is Adrenaline \u2013 all the fun of an arena shooter in a\u00a0boardgame.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

        I am also a fully trained teacher, having worked as a secondary science teacher for 6 years.\u00a0 I would often use game mechanics to\u00a0reinforce the points I was making.\u00a0 Since leaving teaching I have been working in a church as a family support worker, running or helping to run all the outreach and kids\/youth work sessions where I make extensive use of games in helping to\u00a0get points across.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

        Which brings me on to my love of Jesus\/God who are\u00a0<\/b>actually the<\/b>\u00a0same being, with the Holy Spirit \u2013 but that\u2019s a bit of a mouthful really.<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

        I believe Jesus died to save us<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

        I am a Christian, have been since birth.\u00a0\u00a0I am a member of the Church of England\u00a0and was raised an Anglo-Catholic which is a fancy way if saying a church with fancy robes, smelly incense and chanting in Latin.\u00a0For\u00a0a long time\u00a0from my mid teens to mid twenties\u00a0I believed in God but didn\u2019t want anything to do with the church. I think many people go through a period like that, and many of you reading may never have left it or may never have encountered Jesus in the first place.\u00a0\u00a0Now I\u00a0have returned to the church,\u00a0and I have done a lot of exploring about what and who God is to me and how I meet him.\u00a0\u00a0I now don\u2019t class myself as any\u00a0\u2018band\u2019 of church \u2013\u00a0I find all of them have their strengths and weaknesses and I am happy to try them all.\u00a0\u00a0I\u00a0currently\u00a0work for an Evangelical one in Blackpool (evangelical in this context means that the Bible is at the centre of what the Church does).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

        As we travel together through the world of games\u00a0my examples will tend to borrow heavily from my personal experience so may be Christian in nature. However, the\u00a0point of this blog is NOT to\u00a0convert\u00a0you to Christianity.\u00a0I\u00a0hope it will help you explore your personal faith, whatever that may be,\u00a0as well as figuring out what makes you tick\u00a0as a person.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

        So that\u2019s me.\u00a0Ish. I could write for ages going into great depth but that would only serve to bore you senseless so I\u2019m going to leave it at that for now.\u00a0 If you have any questions about me then feel free to leave a comment.\u00a0 You can also find me on Facebook at\u00a0www.facebook.com\/<\/a>SteTaylorGamer, twitter\u00a0@SteTaylorGamer\u00a0and Instagram\u00a0@stetaylorgamer\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Hello and welcome to Games for All!\u00a0 I\u2019m so glad you\u2019ve found this blog and I\u2019m hoping to help you out….but\u00a0what exactly am I helping […] Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-33","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P9PaoJ-x","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamesforall.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamesforall.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamesforall.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamesforall.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamesforall.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/gamesforall.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":155,"href":"https:\/\/gamesforall.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33\/revisions\/155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamesforall.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamesforall.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}