For ÀROKÒ.WORLD, Aishatu Ado explored the ways that Super Mario 64 helped with her and her siblings’ cognitive development without realising that the play was the medicine:
We were three kids sitting on the floor, huddled around the flicker of a TV. The translucent purple controller passed from hand to hand because we loved the idea of seeing the insides. My brother’s thumbs moved like water, long-jump to wall-kick to diving grab, collecting that impossible star in Whomp’s Fortress while we held our breath. When he died, the controller slid left. My sister tried the same route, but failed differently. Then my turn: I’d discovered you could climb the tree, jump to the platform’s edge, bypass the intended path entirely. Whoever held the controller was in charge, but the game belonged to all of us.
We weren’t just playing; we were learning how to take turns, how to cheer one another on, how to laugh at failure and try again. What I didn’t know then is what researchers would confirm years later: those play sessions were not just fun. They were literally reshaping our brains.
Beyond that, it was also a practice of self-care through gaming and I love that concept. Super Mario 64 had a lot of expansive environments that I know I enjoyed and if I revisit the game, I hope to see it through that kind of lens too.