First game you ever played?

[Dojidave]

I was talking with a friend about games we played as children and I went online to see if I could find any games from when very early on and I stumbled across this image:

And this activated my brain since I recognised the snake, trashcan and the little painting minigame to the left. Its apparently called Sammy's Science House and was realised in 1994 which is 4 years before I was even born. Considering I remember it and I cant think of any games I played before it this is probably the first game I ever played in my life!

It led me to wonder what other peoples first game was, if they remember?

[Melooon]

Sammy's Science House was badass! I particularly liked the workbench with its lil animations! Was it on the same CD as Thinkin Things 3 (I always associate those two)

My first game was Lunar Phantom (1995) https://www.gryphel.com/c/sw/arcade/lnrphntm/ I used to play it on my dads PowerBook 145 I still have it! The game in in back and white because Macs at that time didn't have colour screens yet :omg:k: I even emailed the developer years ago and he replied!

A little after that I also had a few other games like Mario's Game Gallery and ooph screw it lemmy go look for my CDs


These seeemd magic and mysterious when I was little

[Kutan]

Oh, how cool! I grew up on the very same Mac stuff-- my family had a Performa 550 (System 7 color with CD-ROM) and my mom had a Powerbook 100 for work. I loved exploring games on the Mac on shareware CDs and coverdisks (MacAddict!), and years later when my mom retired the Powerbook and handed it down to me, I copied lots of B&W games over to floppy and had my own little collection of stuff to play in my room. I'm so happy that nowadays old Mac stuff is getting the coverage it deserves, with cool books and blogs!



But yeah, I'm not sure what the very first game I played was, but it was definitely Mac stuff from that "multimedia CD-ROM" era. It's an aesthetic I still find charming today, where everything you click produces some animation or video or sound effect. Designers just going MAD WITH POWER with their 680 megabytes!

[Melooon]

with cool books and blogs!

But yeah, I'm not sure what the very first game I played was, but it was definitely Mac stuff from that "multimedia CD-ROM" era. It's an aesthetic I still find charming today, where everything you click produces some animation or video or sound effect.

This book looks great, I put my email down to be notified when it comes out I had a Performa too! But it was around 2006 when my mums office was dumping it, I had it setup on my desk for ages, but sound of the CRT drove me away from using it much. I think a lot of my inspiration comes from this era although Iv not really explored it as much as I should.

[Cobra!]

The first game I ever remember playing was Sonic the Hedgehog on the Mega Drive. Have some good memories with that!

I also remember playing the other Sonic games as well as Aladdin and Toy Story. Toy Story was my favourite because it blew my mind how they did the 3D effect!

[Kutan]

This book looks great, I put my email down to be notified when it comes out I had a Performa too! But it was around 2006 when my mums office was dumping it, I had it setup on my desk for ages, but sound of the CRT drove me away from using it much. I think a lot of my inspiration comes from this era although Iv not really explored it as much as I should.

The inspiration definitely shows! I had a lot of fun exploring the site when I first found it; it does harken back to that "multimedia CD" design in a lot of ways. The way it felt to me is that user is expected to explore without guidance, and not necessarily know where each click is going to take them. You don't really have a destination in mind, you're just kind of wandering and stopping to look closer when something piques your interest. I think it's a lot of fun! There's a feeling of excitement and suspense with each click, and it's easy to spend a bunch of time going from page to page wondering what's behind the next door.

And yeah, I ended up taking home a Mac too when the school my Mom worked at was clearing them out. One of those "pizza box" under-monitor designs. The problem is that it was password locked, and I didn't want to nuke it and start from scratch-- it had all kinds of neat educational software I wanted to preserve! One of these days I need to take another crack at it...

Toy Story was my favourite because it blew my mind how they did the 3D effect!

Man, same! A friend had it and we could never make any headway legitimately, but we definitely cheated our way through once or twice and man, it has some really cool showpieces. One of the developers of the game is on YouTube, and he makes videos about the kinds of coding wizardry they did to pull it all off. Fascinating stuff!

[easy_breezy]

Ratchet and clank for the PS2. I sill have the disk, just need to fix up my playstation.

That was in 2007, or so, so I was around 3-4.

[Cobra!]

The inspiration definitely shows! I had a lot of fun exploring the site when I first found it; it does harken back to that "multimedia CD" design in a lot of ways. The way it felt to me is that user is expected to explore without guidance, and not necessarily know where each click is going to take them. You don't really have a destination in mind, you're just kind of wandering and stopping to look closer when something piques your interest. I think it's a lot of fun! There's a feeling of excitement and suspense with each click, and it's easy to spend a bunch of time going from page to page wondering what's behind the next door.

Yeah, I really miss that sense of mystery and exploration. I'm glad the Yesterweb and similar movements have been able to recreate internet side of it!

Would be difficult to recreate it on the desktop/software side of things, given how the internet, and the developers in question, just give away everything there is to know in advance. I remember when Mario Kart 8 was first coming out, Nintendo and IGN just showed you every single character there was to unlock, before we had a chance to find out for ourselves... :|

Though in the rare occasion when a company of any medium doesn't give everything away and deliberately muddies the waters, it's fantastic. Like when Sony kept denying who was or wasn't in Spiderman: No Way Home, and people found out for themselves.

Man, same! A friend had it and we could never make any headway legitimately, but we definitely cheated our way through once or twice and man, it has some really cool showpieces. One of the developers of the game is on YouTube, and he makes videos about the kinds of coding wizardry they did to pull it all off. Fascinating stuff!

Yeah, I watch his videos regularly, it's very interesting how they did what they did!

[demonologi]

the first game i ever remember playing is probably the first sims on my moms PC. i think she only briefly let me play it, i don't remember a lot about it. i remember that i liked to drown the sims in the swimming pools. maybe that's why i wasn't allowed to play it that often. i also had a lot that was like, ONLY dragons from the making magic pack. no house, just dragons

[Dojidave]

Sammy's Science House was badass!

Hell yes!! The contraption painting game was by far my favourite thing to do in the game as well from what I remember.

I'm so happy that nowadays old Mac stuff is getting the coverage it deserves, with cool books and blogs!

Oh this is really cool! I will probably get it too.

[hooray8]

i think first game i ever played was some flash game on cartoonnetwork.com, it was based on cartoon "adventure time" and i don't remember much, if you mean real game on pc/console, i think tomb raider 4 on ps2  :omg:k:

[m15o]

Such a great question, and so difficult to recall... am I that old?! Haha.

I think it must've been Free Ski. I used to play it on Windows 3.1. It looks like it's still possible to play it today from here. Beware, as you progress there might be a monster that might follow you and you may be traumatized. But it's fun!

[di]

The first game I ever played was LEGO Island. I'd play it all day as a little kid, just walking around town and talking to the townsfolk. I didn't even know there was a "storyline" until I looked it up when I was older. It's a very bizarre game.. judging from some of the results on YouTube it looks like it's become a bit of a meme as well.

The effort that went into making the game immersive and whimsical sticks with me. From what I remember, it had a jukebox with several original, actually fun songs to listen to; so many (for my preschooler brain) characters, dialog, and scenarios; a bunch of different parts of the island to explore; the ability to play as different characters and see life from their perspectives.

I adore attention to detail and to this day I try to have the same approach to my projects, funny as that might sound. It reminds me of something I read on Melon's site:

...people are made by their surroundings, the buildings we live in, the books we read and the sites we browse. If we keep building boring mundane buildings, then boring mundane people will grow up in them. ... the little details of peoples lives matter.

Yes I looked it up just so I'd get the quote right - attention to detail remember?

So, I'm so grateful I had this zany game in my childhood. Kids need to interact with art that's made with love and enthusiasm.

[Karius]

The first game we ever played was probably Day of the Tentacle! We recently bought the remastered version since it was on sale, and it's so funny and good- glad to learn that it still holds up we play it with the original pixel graphics and music, they're fantastic!

- Alastor

[PAINTKILLER]

Ms. Pacman sitdown arcade. About the same time, Pong on the Atari2600 at home. Prior to both, however, I played Orgeon's Trail on Commodore64 at school.