Nostalgic gaming: how playing the video games of your youth reconnects you to yourself

With emulators available even on smartphones, dipping into your playing past is easier than ever

Nick Bowman gestures to the old-fashioned gaming consoles littering his desk.

Whenever I am having kind of a crappy day, I pull out the Nintendo," he says, pointing. That's a licensed one. I also have a Raspberry Pi that I have all my emulators on. [And] I have the original Pokemon Red on my smartphone."