Dienstag, 16. April, 2019

HUGO
ITE Media ApS (since 1994)
PRESENTED BY: MASCHA TOBE

1993, living room.
I come home from kindergarden, chuck my rubber boots into one corner of the hallway and my Benjamin Blümchen mini-backpack into the other. Weird sounds are coming from the living room. As I walk around the corner, I catch sight of my dad, totally immersed in the screen. In his hands he is holding something grey and a pixel janitor whizzes across the screen. The next years my father will be spending innumerous hours with playing. And many afternoons, I will also be sitting here. However, I will never be playing with this SNES. In 1993 I am only a mere 4 years old. Not only do I lack the fine motor skills: it‘s a pity for memy parents also think I am too young to be playing video games.

1995, study room.
The SNES is covered by a layer of dust. Already for weeks now, the worn-out controller is lying on the curled up cable connecting it to the console. In my dad‘s study room he now has a grey box with a monitor and joystick next to it, where he plays his fingers numb. There‘s no janitor to be seen here. Instead, my father navigates himself through the three-dimensional world of DOOM and shoos me away every time I nosily glimpse around the corner. Again, I‘m not allowed to play. It can‘t be because of my fine motor skills. What‘s going on?

1995, living room.
Video games have reached the commercial TV program of the nineties. In the ‚Hugo Show‘ on channel Kanal 1 you can even play live. The focus of the game is, as the show already foretells, Hugo. Hugo is a troll with a big nose and fuzzy hair. At the beginning of each show one of his family members is kidnapped by a witch (Germ: Hexe) that goes under the creative name Hexana.
To rescue the kidnapped trolls the play-hungry audience can call and use the telephone keys to navigate Hugo through different skill games, for examplewild water, a draisine or a gliding tour.
An alluring price is always waiting, like a fancy sofa or a sporty scooter. But mostly the navigation suffers from time lags and the prizes rarely find a new owner.
On my way home from school my only wish is for my mother to be stuck somewhere, granting me some time home alone. And once I am home alone, I grab the phone. I will call the ‚Hugo Show‘, save Hugos family and win some fantastic prize.
I wait for this day in vain. Will I ever get the chance to play it myself?

1999, children‘s room.
It‘s a cold February day, but not like any other. It‘s my tenth birthday. As I carry my school bag into my room, I can‘t believe my eyes. There, on my chunky kid‘s table made from pinewood, sits a monitor, a tower is under the table and next to the keyboard lies a CD case, with a grinning Hugo smiling at me on it. Hugo Gold from 1998 is a collection of all the skill games I know and love so much from TV.
Of course, I should also do my homework with this machine. However not only that.
Finally I can play. Finally, it starts, my own videogame-playing biography. After Hugo, a lot more video game characters will follow that I will identify myself with. But Hugo, the Finnish curly-head troll, will always be my number one, the beginning of my videogame history.