Here, I’ll start. When I was 8 years old, my parents went to a dinner party and plonked me down in front of the host’s computer so I’d stay out of their way. The game they booted up to keep me occupied was Space Quest II. Little did they know what impact that would have on me…
King Quest II in Atari ST
Does “Adventure”, Atari, 1980 count?
I got to play Zork in 4th grade on the single C64 in the classroom. Was obsessed with that computer. I beat Zork with a couple classmates and help from the hints book. The teacher gave me a physical Zorkmid coin that came with the boxed game, I still have it somewhere. Zork got me so hooked on computers that it was all I wanted to do.
I had a hard home life, my dad was an abusive addict. I lived in fear of his seemingly random behavior, one day he would be overjoyed and another miserable about everything. The computer was predictable, if it didn’t work right, it was because I did something wrong. The teacher saw how much that computer meant to me. He taught me what he knew about BASIC programming, he gave me the manual. I’d sit in my room and read it cover to cover, trying to understand everything without having a machine to try it on.
One day near the end of the year, the teacher pulled me aside and told me that the school was getting rid of some computers, and that I could have one. I think they were getting Apple II’s, so he put aside a VIC-20 for me. I had to get my mom to drive me to school on a weekend and the teacher met us there. In hindsight, I don’t think he had permission or anything.
Sorry for kind of getting off the topic
The first adventure game I bought and played was an Infocom interactive fiction … I think it was Stationfall. Before I had briefly played Magnetic Scrolls’ Fish! at someone else’s computer. Fell in love with text adventures and started collecting them, I have a few of the Infocom folios as well (sadly not the Starcross saucer). The first graphic adventure I remember playing was King’s Quest IV.
These games, along with later games like Monkey Island, had a huge influence on me, I learned programming to write adventure games myself but spent more time writing adventure game engines (both text and graphic ones) than actual games, and today I’m a software engineer (not in the game business).
Those old Infocom games basically taught me how to type. All the Zorks, Hitchhikers, and there was a Lovecraftian one maybe called Lurking Horror.
Leisure Suit Larry 1. Still remember that one like it was yesterday. Someday I even use that password in some way.
After that many more adventures with Larry followed. As well as all Police Quests. A couple of Kings Quest and a couple of Space Quests.
Sam & Max: Hit the Road!
To this day, it’s one of my favorite games of all time. I haven’t played it in a while, so thank you for making me remember! I’m definitely going to go for a new playthrough when things settle down here.
For me, it was the original King’s Quest. Like you, my dad was looking at a way to keep my brother and I busy.
The original King’s Quest — as in PC Jr, or the DOS conversion? Either way, I would imagine KQ1 kept you guys busy for a loooooong time.
It did keep us busy on the fun DOS conversion
I didn’t play it until a couple of years ago when I did my video on it. I imagine I would have had a lot more fun with it if I was a kid and had all the time in the world to explore the world. Sadly, my first KQ game was KQ3, which stopped you from having any fun every 2-3 minutes with the sudden appearance of a bossy wizard.
I didn’t play that until 18 when I bought the King’s Quest collection. I think if that had been my first experience, I wouldn’t have ventured into the adventure games world at all.
Somehow my friend from school had gotten wind of the “bye bye wizard” cheat code, and we STILL couldn’t get anywhere in the game. I’ll take falling off a space station to my death, thanks. 😂
