Your very first computer game?

[Foebane]

Long before I was on Amiga, or even Atari 600/800XL, my first computer (which was my Dad's) was a Sinclair ZX81 complete with "wobbly" RAM pack. It was like the silent black & white era of movies, but on computers, and there weren't even any user-defined graphics, so one had to make do with the established character set for objects and characters, and imagination was important.

There weren't many games that I remember for this machine, although I did have a small collection of simple programs from Sinclair as demos.

Eventually, for my birthday, I did get Avenger, then Protector, from Abacus Programs. These are very similar-looking games, different in playability, from the same programmer in the same year (1982) and quite good for what they were.

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The trickiest part of these games was getting them to even load from cassette tape, which could fail at any time, especially with the wobbly RAM pack crashing the ZX81 if moved. I must've loaded Avenger so often that I practically memorised the loading noises!

Anyway, these two were my first gaming experiences on computer, what were yours?

[chip]

My first computer was Commodore VIC 20

Used for games and programming

[aeberbach]

ADVENTUR.COM on a green screen terminal, played through a CP/M system.

[chip]

Yes, right, the first game for the VIC 20 i tried

Ok, i remember something like a fish that must arrive without to be eaten by bears to the finish

I really don't remember the name of the game

[Amigajay]

Flight Path 737 on the Commodore 16, a load of crap (the machine too!) but it was the first machine we owned so i have to hold it in some regard lol

[Seiya]

Bonzo for Vic-20

[Mark sealey]

mine was Repton on the Acorn Electron.

[Mikerochip]

I got an Atari XEGS, with Missile Command built in. It was amazing. It also came with a light gun, and cartridge games Bug Hunt, and Flight Simulator II.

Bug Hunt was good, but the light gun wasn't calibrated and shot a little to the right I think. FS2 was the most boring thing I could think of, at the time. It came with manuals that were (what felt like) hundreds of pages long!

Missile Command: [ Show youtube player ]

Bug Hunt: [ Show youtube player ]

Flight Simulator 2: [ Show youtube player ]

All my other games were tapes, and they sure did load s-l-o-w-l-y.

Sadly, my machine was sold to pay for my Atari ST, which I was very underwhelmed by, but at least it didn't have tapes.

[Gordon]

Silly Putty from my Amiga 600 was my first game I played on my own machine.

Before that Street Fighter 2 on amiga 500 made me want an Amiga. Smashing up the car with Dhalsim will always be remembered. That is my strongest earliest memory but I do have vague memories of playing a top down football game which I think is Kick off on c64 but could have been Italy 90. I also remember chase HQ on an Amstrad.

[Coagulus]

Not counting the old Granstand pong/tennis thing it was probably frogger on the Atari 600XL. Still play it now. :-)

My strongest earliest game was H.E.R.O. on the Speccy. No surprise there.

[phx]

Probably some game listing, which I typed in into my VIC-20.
I guess the first commercial game run my VIC-20 was Earth Defense on Datasette.
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[DamienD]

Probably something on the C64; Bomb Jack or Wonderboy.

Console wise; it was an Atari 2600 with Adventure, Pitfall! and River Raid.

[Phantasm]

If you mean computer games specifically rather than video games then there were a couple of educational games we got to play on at school - granny's garden being one of them which is probably known to most people in the uk of a certain age.



Outside of educational games it would have been some text adventure on the spectrum but i have no idea what the name of it was. I'd love to be able to figure it out but i don't really have any specific memories of it other than that there was a lift in it at some point. I played it at summer school (where they opened up the school during the summer holidays and put on activities to keep us kids busy). Must have been 1983.

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

If you mean computer games specifically rather than video games then there were a couple of educational games we got to play on at school - granny's garden being one of them which is probably known to most people in the uk of a certain age.
.

Good point thanks, becuase you just reminded me of my first school game.. Jolly Roger on RM Nimbus! It was a co-ordinates game trying to find treasure.

[Shatterhand]

First computer game I have any memory of playing was this:

[ Show youtube player ]

I'm not sure it was the first, as I know my dad had gotten both Frogger and Decathlon before this one (It was the first MSX games he got).

But first one I actually remember playing was Bosconian on MSX.

I remember I was very young, and there were adults around to see how the young me would play a "complex" game (complex when compared with what he had on the Atari 2600). And I do remember for some reason I thought I could only move up and down... I was on my last life when I figured out I could move on all 8 directions.

[DanScott]

ZX81... possibly 3D Monster Maze, or 3D Defender...or something else perhaps

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

If you mean computer games specifically rather than video games then there were a couple of educational games we got to play on at school - granny's garden being one of them which is probably known to most people in the uk of a certain age.

That's a good point, there was a text adventure with basic graphics on a green monochrome monitor (not sure of the computer though), that I remember playing when in Primary school.

I've love to know what it was called; it was like a medievil / fantasy game set in the 1300s I guess, there were werewolves / vampires, you'd trvel around locations and you have to find a silver bullet / garlic etc...

[Axxy]

I think the 1st game I saw and then played (home computer) was Sabrewulf on the Speccy...

But, not sure what order or when, but I played things like Pacman, Space Invaders and Pong in the arcades, so not sure if that was the 70s or the 80s?

[Shatterhand]

If we are talking about first videogame ever played, it was Kangaroo on the Atari 2600 for me. Also first game I ever looped.

[fatbob_gb]

My first "Computer Game" would have been a type-in version of Bomber on the ZX81, followed by either Mazogs, Asteroids or Defenda - All 4 are were played to death.