Wizard101 Brings Families Together

Melissa GhostSinger is a veteran Wizard101 player who's been active in the community for years. You might know her from Twitter! She's an Ice wizard who's explored streaming and YouTube, and she's also a mom. In her post, Melissa shares her experiences in Wizard101 and how they've been influenced by her kids.

In the summer of 2010, my youngest son came to me and said that he didn't want an owl announcing his admission into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, because he wanted to go to Ravenwood. His heart was set and his eyes were full of determination. Ravenwood, I thought. What in the world is Ravenwood?

I didn't know what he was talking about, but I was open to the idea of learning more about this magical place that had my child in a trance. It was the captivating, colorful, and inviting commercials for Wizard101 that lured him into this new world, and I agreed that the game really does take you on a mythical journey.

Family photo, Christmas 2018

My son played Wizard101 constantly. Every time I called him for dinner, he would tell me, "I’m in the middle of a duel" and apparently I needed to wait. During this time period, he helped his older brother, cousins, and finally myself create accounts and establish our wizards. We even created an account for Dad, but he's still level 1. Day by day, week by week, I looked to my 9-year-old son for guidance on how to battle mobs, how to avoid walking into battles, where to find Mistwood, how to train my pet, and what the best gear was to wear. He was the teacher and I was the student. Both of my sons and I spent years questing together. We would even login and play Wizard101 with their cousins at family gatherings. Every Friday night, we would take our laptops to area restaurants that had Wi-Fi. There, we'd eat dinner and battle through dungeons together. Those have always been some of my favorite family memories. One of the most rewarding and celebrated victories came after spending two hours in the Tower of Helephant with my youngest son. At the time I was in California on a girls' trip and my son was at home, two hours ahead of me. We both got on wizard101 to start the morning before breakfast and decided to battle the Tower of the Helephant. We were assisted by a random higher-level wizard who helped carry us, but I can still remember the numerous times we died and had to run back from the beginning of Wysteria grabbing health and mana wisps on the way. After we defeated the dungeon, we were screaming and super excited and very grateful to the kind wizard who helped.

Tower of the Helephant with my son and a helpful, random higher-level wizard (pre-team up)

I think what I love the most about playing Wizard101 is that every time I had any kind of question, I could ask my children what to do and they always had the answer. It was a very interesting dynamic to have a parent constantly turning to their children for guidance on where to find items in the game or which cards to pick in battle. They were the experts and I was learning from them on their turf. The years we've spent playing Wizard101 and questing bonded us, and built a strong, trusting relationship that was developed by teamwork and supporting each other as we tried to make it out of dungeons alive like Marleybone's Big Ben. At a core level, my kids knew that their voice mattered and that we could rely on each other.

Questing with my son in Celestia

As the years have gone by, my sons have moved on to college and real-life quests and rarely play Wizard101, but I continue to maintain their accounts and I still play almost daily. On special occasions, we still make time as a family to log on for Mother's Day, birthdays, or Christmas to help me defeat the hardest dungeons, or for the rare streaming session. These moments are some of the most cherished and enjoyable. Playing Wizard101 continues to be something we can do together as a family at any age and maybe one day my sons might return to the Spiral and play on a more regular basis again.

Thanks to Melissa for this post!

Thanks for reading and see you in the Spiral!