How you got hooked on computer games

[Jeeves]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QrTvNl8NuQ

My very first graphics game, purchased a Nintendo just so I could play it.

I first started playing TEXT games with Star Trek, and Colossal Cavern in 1978. How about you?

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Global Effect - the only game I ever played with NO win scenario at ALL. Hundreds of hours of play trying to balance co2 vs pollution vs global ice age - ARRRRGGHHH

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01RrJ5NkWuw

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Star control on the Amiga - first multiplayer video sf game :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsWIYQfMpPw
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[Wenla]

I was working in computer business about 45 years (I'm retired now) and at that time when you worked with computers, you also played with computers (PC was not invented yet). First games I played with VAX central machines but I can't remember names of those text games (it's so looooooooong time ago), but I remember 'my' first space game, it was called "Space traders". It's 'graphics' was made by letters, and it was fun to play with VT52 terminal. Anybody else remember this one?

[Erik Rutins]

I remember playing "Hunt the Wumpus" on a mainframe through an acoustic modem hooked up to a teletype terminal. [8D]

[flap]

I did not have any choice : my father and both 10 and 8 years older brothers are programmer or working in computer industry.
I remember in the 80's when they were still young and creating games for fun.

Though "Hunt the wumpus" is still a great game. It is an Interactive Fiction (very loose) remake of that game which got me into that specific genre around 2005.

[Jeeves]

teletype terminal.

Oh yes, most of them 110 bits/sec, but if you were really lucky, you could use one of the super duper ones with 300bits/sec!

I worked for a physics research lab while in college. I persuaded the boss to install a second phone line and buy a tektronix GRAPHICS terminal, which did not even use paper! Then while the old teletype machine was occupied doing a compile on my neutron activation analysis system, I would sneak in some playtime on the SUPER terminal at a rip roaring 1200 bits/sec, playing STAR TREK.

I think that we have a wonderful future awaiting us, where our children (or grandchildren) will look back in pity at our miserable 1-10 gigabyte/sec cable connections, and terminals which were (OH HORRORS!) not even HOLOGRAPHIC!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_the_wumpus

I checked, even Wikipedia does not remember any "Space Traders", perhaps you mean "Star Flight"?

[flap]

Space Traders

I think that it would be "star traders". There still are some servers working.

[J HG T]

All kinds of 'ol consoles, can't even remember their names (Probably C-64s and others) now, which I played when visiting my friends. My first "real" gaming platform would be the NES 8-bit and the mandatory super mario bros. Around 4th grade I got my first computer and started to play all kinds of shareware games (Doom, Wolfenstein, Commander keens etc. etc.). The first PC game that I bought with my own money was Descent 2. That game was just something else back then. The soundtrack of Descent 2 is still one of my favourite game OSTs. How can't you love this: "Cold Reality"
I could literally write a whole day about my games and wouldn't have told everything, but these are my roots.

[martok]

My best friend in senior high school had a number of games on his PC, including Lemmings and a number of strategy titles (Castles II especially sticks out in my mind). I was quickly hooked after playing some of them, and never really looked back!

[ehsumrell1]

Doom got me into PC gaming. But then I discovered StarFlight and
it's sequel StarFlight II, Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula. Being
a Trekkie, that did it! [:D] The came Stars!, MOO2, and IG2.

[lordxorn]

I was into Caleco Vision, Atari, C64 games like the Ultima series and stuff, but Master of Orion 1 and 2 is what got me HOOKED onto PC games, of course the other genre of flight and tank sims like M1 Tank Platoon, F117, F15, and the venerable Falcon helped further turn me into a PC Game junkie spending every dime I had at stores like Computer City, Egghead Software, Software Etc., Electronics Boutique, and don't forget all the hardware that supplemented our addiction like the amazing Sound Blaster! CH Flight stick, etc....

[Igard]

The arcade shoot 'em up 1942 was my first gaming memory on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. I always remember getting thumped at it by my brother.

First game I got hooked on was Frontier: Elite II on the Amiga 1200.

[Jeeves]

Hmm conspicuously absent from the lists are Rogue, Hack, Larn, Moria, all of the Rogue likes. Aren't there any hit point junkies out there? 2000+ hours here on those,

Before I played my first real strategy versus shoot em up game, I spent a thousand hours or so playing mystery games like Zork and its sequels.

Also honorable memories arise from the Zelda series on Nintendo, especially the meticulous drawing of maps on desk blotter sheets... 500+ hours

[WoodMan]

Hmm when I was a little kid I guess the first games I remember were the Commander Keen games, had all 6 of those!  Not sure that was enough to get me hooked though

Probably it was a Roger Wilco I had (the one with the shopping mall, where you float in the ice rink thing and get a job making burgers) and Monkey Island 2.  Then after that Doom 2 and the Duke Nukem 3D, Quakes etc

Sounds like you guys are old [:D] Half the stuff you mention was obsolete when I was a kid [;)]

[Jeeves]

Sounds like you guys are old Half the stuff you mention was obsolete when I was a kid

Hmm old? I am 54, not really old. I guess it depends upon the age of the person who is allocating a category. I just have a little head start on so called "young" people. With upcoming breakthroughs in genetics, there should be no good reason for ANYONE to die of "old age" within the next 20-30 years. The mechanism which determines cellular replacement is well understood, a little section of coding on the DNA molecule. That code section has a countdown timer built in. Each time a cell divides, the new copy has a few molecules less in the replicated cell, and the originating cell dies soon after replication. The new cell is unable to replicate if it was generated by a cell with an exhausted countdown timer.

Basically all that is required for genetic therapy to halt aging is a retrovirus designed to cap off the countdown timer's decrementing mechanism, so that a true rather than decremented count is produced...

[Shark7]

The first computer game I ever played was the Three-Sixty version of 'Harpoon' in the 1980s. Guess you could still say that I am a fan. Points down to signature [;)]

[adecoy95]

i started playing video games when i was really young, games like battleship and mickey mouse puzzle (wow i cant find it on wikipedia). im not as old as some of yall (24), but i started pretty young [:D]

we were poor as hell tho, most of the games i had when i was young was from those demo cds in the magazines you could get for free the first month [:D]

[Jeeves]

ORIGINAL: adecoy95

i started playing video games when i was really young, games like battleship and mickey mouse puzzle (wow i cant find it on wikipedia). im not as old as some of yall (24), but i started pretty young [:D]

we were poor as hell tho, most of the games i had when i was young was from those demo cds in the magazines you could get for free the first month [:D]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_games

You should be able to find it, if you start at the top of the tree...

Which reminds me to put in a plug for Wikipedia donations. I gave $50 this year to repay the nonprofit (and no advertisements) service, available for free worldwide. If you are as frequent of a user a I am, then give as though you were dealing with a best friend...

[adecoy95]

bah, i am not going to sort through that, im not really that interested anyways, it was just a silly puzzle game on those old mega large floppys

[shinobu]

Playmaker Football and Starflight around 1991...

[sanch]

ORIGINAL: Wenla

I was working in computer business about 45 years (I'm retired now) and at that time when you worked with computers, you also played with computers (PC was not invented yet). First games I played with VAX central machines but I can't remember names of those text games (it's so looooooooong time ago), but I remember 'my' first space game, it was called "Space traders". It's 'graphics' was made by letters, and it was fun to play with VT52 terminal. Anybody else remember this one?

Empire on a DEC-10 on a (yes) VT-52 via 1200-bit modem. The map looked something like ...

Code: Select all

 ....-----X----aa--AA
 ......-------a---A--
 .........T.---A-----
 ..............------
 
 . = water
 - = land
 X = enemy city
 a = enemy army
 A = your army
 T = your troopship

Here we have an apparent invasion of an enemy stronghold ...