Feels like nostalgia for a time period I just missed but that I've experienced second-hand by being on the internet for a while now.
I've never really played the computer game classics all that much in my youth. My brother and I mostly played whatever friends played or what we could randomly get our hands on.
Maybe the one piece of gaming history that I've grown up with is Minecraft. A good friend introduced me to an early beta at some point, showing me his base in the side of a mountain and a wonky railway to his mines. The years since that moment I've played many different versions and modpacks, and set up countless servers for playing with friends and my brother.
But I never considered myself a game nerd, like some friends I later met at university clearly were.
And still, this story does an amazing job of pulling on those threads of nostalgia, regardless of whether you lived through the specific time period yourself. Nostalgia remains a deeply human emotion and Gabrielle knows how to wield it. (Although Frederiek told me the book didn't really do this for her.)
It's also interesting how immensely popular this book is (most popular book in NYC libraries in 2024) considering its "niche". Might be because the human story is, above all, very strong. And it's just fascinating to read about people that are incredibly passioned about something (making games).