Posted: Aug 10, 2024
Tags: Blaugust2024, Gaming, My History with Videogames Series
Check out Part 1.
My parents wouldn't buy me many brand new games (too much money), so I was often playing random games from the discount bin. I actually managed to play a few gems, just years after most others.
I 100%-ed a Pac-man game (possibly a clone?). I don't really 100% games even to this day and I'm not a pac-man fan so this is seared into my brain. Its weird to think about the things kid me could accomplish, I don't have neither the patience nor desire now.
Ghost Master is a strange strategy game where you control ghosts and scare all the people out of a level. There's a scare energy management mechanic where you need to scare a lot of people with smaller scares, in order to finish off with the big scare. This aspect felt very puzzly. I actually managed to beat this game. Thinking back on it, its still a unique title if you like campy kid friendly horror.
Civilzation 2 is the only Civ game I've spent much time with. That said I've spent quite enough time with it.
I actually got this in a jewel case that came with a poster of the tech tree. Unfortunately I no longer have that poster.
I remember one time I was India, only made 3 cities and ended up so technologically advanced that I was at space tech/future 5 or something similar. I had nukes while everyone else was still around US civil war tech. Good times.
Currently, I don't enjoy the 4X genre. I prefer to have games explore small scenarios and focus on a small cast rather than something epic but a lot is simulated. Also I am terrible at them.
Creatures 1 and 3 are both pillars of my childhood. They are weirdly complex pet simulators where you can teach the pets (Norns) words, train them to do things and even breed them as they age and die. You can use the Norns to explore the strange world they live in, play with them and even punish them.
I feel like Creatures really influenced what I like about monster/pet games. I like the focus on taking care and developing a relationship with them rather than the battle games that dominate.
SimPark is probably my most nostalgic Maxis title. Its a game where you build a park and balance nature and the park visitors. Truth be told I resented the human component and made their area as small as possible. I just wanted to decorate the forest and see the animals wander around. There were also edutainment elements such as a bird call recognition game and facts on the animals in the game.
Spider-Man Cartoon Maker is what it says. Kind of. Imagine a retro Paint-like interface and you get to move around Spiderman themed gifs. The software records it and makes little movies out of what you did. Since most of us at the time playing this were around 10, I doubt any of the cartoons we made were any good. But it was a good time.
Here is a good place to stop for now. We are leaving my early PC Gaming years (finally!) and entering the Flash and Online games part of my story. Click here to see the rest of the series (work in progress as of Aug 10, 2024).
If you want to contact me regarding your own videogame history, email me at funkyfrogster@proton.me or Sign the Guestbook. I'd love to hear from you and feel free to send links to your reply blog posts!
You have your own videogame history? Lets talk me via email at funkyfrogster@proton.me or comment on my
Guestbook. I'd love to hear from you!