For many children of the 80s, a Super Nintendo on top of the TV was a familiar sight, but not one that followed them into adulthood. For Matthew Williams, 41, a childhood love of video games has turned into a unique way of bonding with his sons who've had a more difficult time than many kids their age.
Matthew's youngest son Macsen, now 11, was born with a gene variation which confuses the messages that his nerve cells pass to each other. This limits his movement, leaves him with severe epilepsy, means he is effectively non-verbal, and can cause him immense pain.
This meant that, when he was younger and his seizures were out of control, he had to spend several periods in hospital. During one of these periods, Matthew thought of a way to spend some quality time with his older son Ioan, now 14.
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Matthew explained: "As a kid growing up, I had a Master System, then a Super Nintendo and a Nintendo 64. I used to spend all my evenings at my friends' houses playing Mario Kart and things, but I wasn't particularly good at it.
"When Ioan was born we bought a Wii, and we just used to play silly games on that. [When Macsen was in hospital], either one of us would stay with Ioan or he'd go to his grandparents.
"There was a lot of disruption in his life and a lot of time away from him, so we wanted to find a special thing to do with him that was just for him. He absolutely worships his brother but it was important that he had quality time with us."
So, when Ioan was around six or seven, Matthew found a Mario Kart tournament organised by the Nintendo South Wales group in Cardiff, and took Ioan along. They found a room of "young adults and student types," who were all "really friendly, and made a fuss of Ioan."
Matthew said both him and Ioan were admittedly "rubbish" in the tournament, but that Ioan especially "absolutely loved it."
He added: "It creates a bonding opportunity. I’ve always thought it’s important that I should be interested in the same things the kids are. It gives us opportunities to talk about stuff.
"Really, it’s to create that safe space for us to be able to talk about anything. When Ioan’s having tough times, we’ve created that relationship where he’s comfortable talking about anything.
"He has a tougher life than many kids his age and he has to deal with things they don’t have to deal with. I feel like gaming is an opportunity to discuss those difficult things when they happen."
It wasn't long before Ioan and Matthew tried getting Macsen involved, too. Matthew explained the bond between his two boys: "Before Macsen was born, Ioan always wanted a brother. Ever since he’s been able to talk he’s always said he wanted a brother and he’d talk about all the things he’d do - play Lego with him, play games, do all these things.
"Obviously when Macsen was born, we were quite worried that Ioan would be upset that he wouldn’t be able to do the things that he’d thought about. But that’s never been in his mind.
"Since Macsen was born, Ioan’s absolutely worshipped him. In the morning he walks downstairs, goes straight past me and his mum, and gives Macsen a cwtch.
"You can see Macsen’s face - every time he sees Ioan open the door, his eyes light up. Macsen’s non-verbal but there’s only three times he’s ever said anything in his life, and one of them was ‘Ioan’."
"Then he verbalises sounds that sound exactly like 'I love you.' Ioan brings out the best in Macsen."
Matthew had been trying for years to get Macsen to interact with big multi-coloured buttons known as "switches." Lots of the activities set up for switches involve fairly simple tasks - for instance, picking between two noises for a computer to make, and Matthew said: "Macsen’s gone beyond that in terms of what he wants to do - but his ability to process information has developed further than his physical abilities."
The family got in touch with the charity SpecialEffect, which has been providing specialised controllers for physically disabled people to help them enjoy video games. Matthew was absolutely blown away with their support - offering to buy equipment for them, send out several controllers so they could see which ones worked, sending the family a specialised tray for Macsen's wheelchair - and after all that, saying that the family didn't need to pay a penny and could keep the equipment for as long as they needed, even if that was forever.
Matthew described Macsen's experience of playing video games: "His favourite game is Miitopia where you set up all your families as Miis, and they all go off on different adventures. It waits for you to make your choices so it’s not timed.
"He’s also played Mario and Rabbids, and before you go into a level there’s quite a big open space you can walk around and interact with things. There’s always these little things to find.
"He kind of just wandered into the first battle and I was just expecting him to move around a bit, but he won it straight away and absolutely loved it. It’s so nice for him to do the same things his brother and father do."
"He will laugh and you can see the smile on his face when he’s doing it. What’s quite interesting is when he’s doing it he looks really focused and serious.
"He does it and then you see the grin come afterwards! His eyes brighten and his face lights up, he has a big beaming smile."
The generosity the family have faced has gone further than the help from SpecialEffect, too. Matthew said Paul and Sarah from Nintendo South Wales have been "amazing," making sure to welcome them when they first came along, and that everyone from the group was "really friendly."
Many of them became close friends of the family, playing video games with Ioan and Matthew, and helping organise amazing trips for Matthew to take his boys on - including a Nintendo play-testing event at the Science Museum in London, and a video game history event at Techniquest.
Ioan and Matthew also won a competition to visit the developers of one of their favourite games, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, in Paris. Matthew said all the developers and producers made a huge fuss over Ioan - especially the game's creative director Davide Soliani.
Mr Soliani came down from Milan and spent "the whole weekend" with Matthew and Ioan, going to dinner with them every day and talking to them about the game. Matthew said: "We were saying it was so strange that you’ve still got all of these developers together, they must be making a sequel to the game... he kept saying: 'No, but if we were, what would you want in it?'
"There's a sequel coming out and they announced this week that something Ioan suggested will be in it. Ioan was like: 'I gave him that idea!'"
Ioan has continued to get involved in video game tournaments and regularly finishes in the top spots. The family also had the chance to make a video game together, including the boys' mum Lisa who isn't usually into computer games.
Lisa's the most artistic member of the family, and designed the textures for a game that Ioan designed and Matthew coded. They made the game suitable for disabilities, so that you could flip a switch to simplify the textures and make the visuals clearer. Matthew said: "Then we could talk about accessibility and educate people around it as well, and we got Macs to test it too."
Matthew said he would love to give a shout-out to the Nintendo South Wales group and their monthly events. He said: "It’s open to all ages. People can go along - you don’t need to own the games, you can just play any game with people who have the same interests."
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