Gamer life

Published: January 4, 2019

The first computer game I remember was J-bird on my fathers workstations from the early 80’s and 70’s. It was in CGA graphics (4 colors from a 16 color palette).

https://youtu.be/JWn-XCx7W6A

He also showed me a dungeon crawler, and PACMAN.

These two were in monochrome yellow/black graphics. I don’t know if playing them qualified me as a gamer at maybe 7-8 years of age. But I certainly wasn’t aware of the concept gamer when I became a gamer.

Later, around age 9-12 I played a lot of PC games which my best friend and neighbor introduced me too. I’ll list just a tiny fraction of them. These were a great help for learning English. With them I learnt most of my first English vocabulary, much more than I did in school.

Early sports games. Gran Prix by Accolade, a Formula I simulator.. Then there was PGA Tour, a golf game I enjoyed a lot. Summer Games II, based on the Olympic games.

https://youtu.be/XbYNrXg7DjA

NHL Hockey, a lot of time spent with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olYXJL63Jws

I remember getting a Game Boy. I loved playing The Legend of Zelda Link’s Awakening. I also played Tetris and Ninja Turtles on the Game Boy, along with a few other games I don’t remember.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQlP9sHf5Ho

I was very fond of point and click adventure games. One favorite was Simon the Sorcerer, juxtaposing fables along with pixel-art graphics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2M4hndQ9pY

I played Monkey Island 2, and Discworld, the former series maybe the most successful and the latter the hardest one in the genre during that era. I’m sure there were more difficult games in this genre, both before and later. I never was into Kings Quest.

FPS

I also played first person shooters: Wolfenstein 3D was the first, then DOOM and DOOM II. What I most enjoyed was the music in the latter, it was around this time I got into making music using MIDI and PC software, not just playing piano, bass and drums.

Somewhere there when Quake came I lost interest in these types of games. Only many years later I was briefly into CS:GO.

Flight Simulators

The first was a game flying a cloaked stealth fighter. Then I had a long run playing a second world war game. My dream job as a small child was to be a pilot.

Non-PC

I played many games on Nintendo 8-bit and Atari and Amiga at the homes of my classmates. This felt like a completely different universe to me, who was used to the PC. Employing tape cassettes for permanent data storage like the Commodore did was a curiosity

RTS

I was always a fan of building in games. Perhaps it started with Warcraft. Laying out a neat base was sometimes more fun than the fighting in real-time strategy games, it had a creative appeal. I also enjoyed the adventurous exploration of mythology and music in the genre.

After Warcraft II I played Command & Conquer Red Alert and Dune II, which I enjoyed but not as much

I also played simulators like SimCity and Transport Tycoon, the latter mostly in its open source version OpenTTD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6lJgu1jGN8

Starcraft II. I loved the experience of mastering precise mechanics, it led to flow experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odXS4\_D3SSg

I also played Starcraft Brood War.

RPG

I played through Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II as well as Icewind Dale several times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP4PYHDzEdM

Final Fantasy III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2 and XII. And Chrono Trigger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF2cski7Q7M

Oblivion and Skyrim. Games that feel open but are pretty linear with their main narrative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELpWshuHoO4

Adventure/Creative sandbox

Minecraft. I built and played several worlds including a few mod packs/mods such as Life In the Woods, Feed The Beast and TerraFirmaCraft.

Some other games which deserve mentions.

• STUGAN (text-based adventure in Swedish)

• Cheops Pyramid (educational math)

• Where in the world is Carmen San Diego (educational geography)

• Prince of Persia (platformer)

• Lemmings (puzzle-platformer)

• Pinball Dreams/Fantasies (arcade)

• Civilization (strategy)

• Incredible Machine (puzzle game)

• Lost Vikings (platformer/puzzle)

• Beneath a Steel Sky

Future

I am creating my own little game