I saw this Lemmy post, but a huge list of games with no discussion isn’t very interesting! Let’s talk about why the games that influenced us had such a big impact - how they affected us as people.
For me, it was the PC game Creatures. It’s a life simulation game featuring cute little beings called ‘Norns’ which you raise and teach.
You can almost think of it like a much cuter predecessor to The Sims, but which claimed to actually “simulate” their brains.
As a thirteen-year-old it was the first game that made me want to go online and seek out more info. What I discovered was a community of similar-interest nerds hanging out on IRC chat, and it felt like for the first time in my life I had “found my people” - others who weren’t just friends, but whom I really resonated with.
I learned web development (PHP at the time!) so I could make a site for the game, which became the foundation for my job in software engineering.
And through that group I also discovered the Furry community, which was a wild ride in itself.
So yeah, Creatures. Without that game, I think I’d have become quite a different person.
Zork. It’s the reason I have any typing skills at all.
I would love love love a spiritual successor to Zork: Grand Inquisitor. The zany humor is just on point from top to bottom.
Pemasuck Vaccums! We don’t just make things that suck. We make things that suck permanently!
Ocarina of Time - it was mindblowing to have the open world at the time (I didn’t play Ultima 7 until much later) and the music is incredible.
Most influential… it might be Castle Adventure on MSDOS or something like Alleyway on the Gameboy simply because they were the first games I remember playing. Or an old Mac program like Factory or Maelstrom or Power Pete with which I wiled away many hours. Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament was the first time I messed around with modding and that computer literacy and problem solving certainly had an impact.
I didn’t go into any computer-related fields, I just really like video games and they’ve been both a solo hobby and social catalyst for my entire conscious life. Maybe Super Smash Bros Melee or Star Wars Battlefront 2 or Halo because the early 2000s cemented some of my longest friendships and those were at the forefront.
E.V.O. Search for Eden on the Super Nintendo. It sparked my interest in evolution and honestly a fascination about the origins of “things”.
I only found out about E.V.O. way later, probably around 2005 when a friend made a web game that combined its evolution theme with gameplay similar to Legend of the Green Dragon. I still wonder why E.V.O. wasn’t more popular. It’s an amazing game, I still occasionally play it on my Analogue Pocket.
Many games cemented my love for video games. Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, Prince of Persia… God of War, parents didn’t give a fux back then, the pixels weren’t that realistic.
Seeing Sonic the Hedgehog as an eyecatcher on a tv in a tv store.
Mario ofcourse. Super Mario World 3 on a cracked playstation.
The secret of monkey island, the first two. Together with Eye Of The Beholder 2, the legend of DARKMOON.
And of course Leisure Suit Larry (n.1)
Then, probably Full Throttle a bit later.
And indeed, Ultima 7 and Ultima Underworld.
Also, Wing Commander 1!
They all defined every other game I enjoyed in the following years. Up to today.
Tales of Phantasia.
At the end, you find out that the BBEG was controlling monsters and waging war against the kingdom to save both your world and his.
You’re literally the villian in his story.
What a twist :) I like it when games subvert your expectations
Did you read the books? They’re not bad.
Falling sand is why I like/crave physics interactions in games
If we don’t have to have played it - the Zelda Cdi games, for obvious reasons. My most recent subscribtion is an active YTP channel.
Myst, I wanted to write books that linked to worlds. Figured the closest thing was programming.
Civilization 1, patients, economics, frustration.
Doom, was just a shit ton of fun and got me into networking so we could play against each other.
I have a soft spot for Myst too, so I totally understand this. I own the “big box” PC versions of all the Myst games up until V (Revelations) which are the only big box games I still kept. It was magical to me at the time, Riven especially which I used to play together with my mother so there’s fond memories there.
Did you play the new 3D version of Riven? I’ve never had so much childhood nostalgia as I did with that!
I haven’t! I may give it a shot :)
I was obsessed with Myst, I loved the whole series, except maybe Myst 5. I so wanted Uru to turn into something.
When my dad gave me Myst, I had no idea what CD-ROMs were, so I put it in the cd player. Then he showed me the fancy new family Compaq computer and it’s amazing CD ROM drive.
Idk I kind of liked Uru. Love me some Peter Gabriel.
I was obsessed, played it to death. I was so sad when they shut it down.
As a child, has to be Diablo 2. I had no idea what I was doing but I had fun. And it got me into reading, actually. I read some books now and then, but wasn’t an avid reader. But when I played Diablo 2, I found out there are books from the Diablo world and got one. I remember when I got home I was like “ok, since I got the book I will read one chapter and then go to playing” - well I didn’t turn on the PC for 3 days until I have finished the book. And then went to get more.
Another was World of Warcraft (though I was not exactly a kid by then). It made me fall in love with MMOs, a genre which I still love (though no game holds me today quite as WoW did - still hope for one though). And thanks to it I got to know people I’m friends with to this day.
I love how you didn’t mean to read the whole book but totally got captured haha. Definitely a formative experience :)
Shadowrun on the Sega Genesis. It led me to my favorite genre of…well…anything… It was my introduction to Cyberpunk, essentially. And in a lot of different ways, it’s factored into most of hobbies (writing, painting, etc…)
ZZT!
This is the game that got Tim Sweeney the cash he needed to develop Jill of the Jungle and then go off of that success to bring Epic (Epic Megagames at the time) into the successful company it became. But I don’t care about that because I never played Unreal or Fortnite.
ZZT came with its own editing software. Not just so you could place pieces around the board and make mazes or whatever, it contained a fairly robust scripting language you could use to make all sorts of things way beyond the scope of the original game the editor came with. Whole online communities grew up around creating and sharing these homemade games, first on BBSes and then on AoL fora and eventually on a dedicated website that’s still around. Because the game/editor were distributed as shareware, there was almost no barrier to entry, and we were all just churning with ideas about how to break the engine and push the bounds of the software, of gameplay, and if narrative convention.
It was one of the most creative and community-focused times of my life, and fostered my lifelong passion for game design, something I still do as a hobby.
I’d never heard of that game or the associated editor, but it seems fascinating.
I just had a poke around on the site, and it gives me some very good and happy vibes of how websites used to be, and the cosy communities that they hosted where all the regulars knew each other by name. Or by handle rather, since nobody ever uses their real name on the Internet, right? ;) Good times.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
My older cousins got me into it, and they were the coolest.
My first playthrough took months to finish. I would just roam fighting every enemy, cutting every bush, charge into every tree, sprinkle magic powder on every living being to see if they would transform. I loved that it felt limitless in the secrets and exploration. It’s definitely the main reason I’m so into the Dark Souls games as an adult.
I think as adults we’re still looking for a game that recaptures that childhood wonder.
One game that comes very close is Tunic, which is a zeldalike with a lot of spirit. I won’t spoil it for you or anyone else who may not have played, but it’s brilliant and I highly recommend it.
Best enjoyed on a lazy Saturday morning snuggled in a blanket pretending you’re nine years old again.
Tunic felt to me like being 3 or 4 again. Unable to read the instructions, working it out from the pictures and button icons.
I didnt complete it, I got stuck against some baddy quite early on and just sorta lost interest, but its on my list of games to go back to.
You should definitely go back, it’s so fun to learn about the inscrutable manual pages.
Rather than feeling like I was four, my experience was more like as if I was a kid in the 90s and my Dad was a businessman who brought home Zelda from Japan but it was all in Japanese and I didn’t know Japanese lol.
One thing to note about Tunic is that it has really good accessibility options. You can go in and give yourself extra hearts, or you can even turn on invincibility if you are really struggling and need to.get past a tough part sonyou can continue with the.story :)
I played TUNIC fairly recently and I also love and recommend it.
Yay <3
