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[Logic Spoon]

I love hearing people's stories about how they got into PC gaming. For me it was this game:

D&D Stronghold: Kingdom Simulator

I ended up playing this for hundreds of hours on my 486DX with 4mb of RAM. I was a huge D&D nerd so I loved going in and tweaking all the little stat bars and micromanaging every little aspect. I think I even played this so much I had a monitor that had parts of the UI burned into it.

Before this, "the computer" (IE the family computer) was strictly to be used for typing or business - these games opened my eyes to the possibility of computers being cool.

What's your earliest or first memory of gaming on the PC?

 

[Catphish]

King's Quest on a Tandy machine at the local Radio Shack, circa 1984

 

[Velius]

This.

I was floored.

 

[solid mike]

Full Tilt! Pinball - Space Cadet Edition on Windows 98. Back then, we also had a NES but I got bored of Super Mario quick. When we got a PS1, all opportunities of PC gaming went on hiatus until MMORPGs grew.

 

[The Freeman]

It was one of two things:

1) Trying to get into Leisure Suit Larry with a friend when we were young and trying to answer the adult questions

2) Owning a Mega PC and playing Sim City and then changing to the Mega Drive and playing Mickey Mouse: World of Illusion.

 

[MrBud360]

King Quest 1.............good times! 1986

 

[Pantz]

Good first game.

 

[GuessWho]

 

[Wonkytonky]

Putt-Putt Joins The Parade.

 

[Dmented]

This.

I was floored.

Yup, exactly the same here.

 

[kingbean]

Ski free and some game about apes tossing explosive bananas.

As far as real games go it was kings quest 3, watching my mom play it.

 

[EndMerit]

 

[jshackles]

Sky free and some game about apes tossing explosive bananas.

As far as real games go it was kings quest 3, watching my mom play it.

Was it QBasic Gorillas?

I played way too much of this game back in the day. I hacked the everloving crap out of the code too - it definitely got me interested in programming way back in the day.

So great, but definitely feels ancient nowadays. I tried showing my kids "what gaming used to be like" by showing them a youtube video of this game in action, and they just rolled their eyes.

 

[The Stig]

Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy text adventure. Yeah Im old.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/art...e-to-the-galaxy-game-30th-anniversary-edition

 

[NahaNago]

Its oregon trail i believe. It was on the school's computer.

 

[Goldfishking]

Civ V. Since then i've still prefered my xbox, but alot of time is spent on my PC playing strategy games.

 

[MDSLKTR]

Watching Warcraft 2 demo reel at the computer store. Then looking through all the huge software boxes kknd, diablo 1, little big adventure etc. Great times.

 

[Chexr]

Number Munchers, Oregon Trail at school.

Ski Free or Lego Island at home

 

[Rhetorical Question]

Dangerous Dave

First game I played on the PC. I was 5 or 6 back then, I since then gaming became my passion.

 

[Valonquar]

Shamus on the TRS-80 around 1983. It was not exactly the most exciting time. I also remember some god awful Mario clone.

There was a decent gap after that til x386 days. I recall playing Battle Chess & OG Prince of Persia on a PC in the school library around 89 and being impressed by the animations.

Doom on a 486 was my official gateway into PC ownership, learning how to build my own machine, and tweak autoexec.bat & config.sys to get the most out of my rig to be able to play early FPS at decent framerate/resolutions. If it wasn't for early gaming, I probably never would have gotten into IT work. Good times.

 

[Swass]

That was my first PC game I remember, but I played a bunch of games on the TI 99/4A which was my very first computer. Then I migrated to an Atari ST. Finally getting an 8086.

 

[kingbean]

Was it QBasic Gorillas?

I played way too much of this game back in the day. I hacked the everloving crap out of the code too - it definitely got me interested in programming way back in the day.

So great, but definitely feels ancient nowadays. I tried showing my kids "what gaming used to be like" by showing them a youtube video of this game in action, and they just rolled their eyes.

Yes thats it, it's nice to finally know the name. The only thing I ever did was change some of the colors.

 

[_Aaron_]

Microsoft Solitaire.

 

[autoduelist]

My stepfather's friend showing me what was most likely an early Wizardry and we kicked some orc butt. Not 100% what game, but I know it had wireframe graphics and combat/equipment [ie, drpg].

Also, playing Artillery with them. [you set angle and power of shot and aim for enemy gun]

 

[SonicVolcano]

Wolfenstein 3D, of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIUULIh2meI

 

[SlipperyMoose]

Earliest PC game memories?

Hover
Rodents Revenge
Jazz Jackrabbit
SkiFree
Tyrian
Pajama Sam
Myst

Those are probably the earliest I can remember.

 

[abracadaver]

My dad showed me Battle Chess. I spent the next hour or so with playing the game and looking at all the different kill animations. Was pretty amazing and blew my 6 year old mind.

 

[martino]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFezj_qpux8

 

[yukonrye]

Sierra's The Black Cauldron
Played it on a Tandy in Radio Shack. The clerk copied it and Space Quest and gave them to me.

 

[The Lamonster]

At school, it would be Oregon Trail or Number Munchers around 1993 but at home it would be Rebel Assult 2 in 1995.

 

[wolgoen]

This.

I was floored.

+1

One of my fave games of all time, partly because it was my first PC game too.

 

[SirNinja]

Lemonade Stand on the Apple IIc.

Doesn't look like much now but my ~6-year-old self was blown away back then by the fact that you could do something like that on a computer that struggled to load even a simple word processing program.

 

[SteffenAH]

I think it must be playing Moonstone on my big brothers Amiga. That, and Stunt Car Racer. Aaah, memories.

I owe a great deal to my brother for introducing me to gaming. Even though he's ten years older than me, he always let me join him and his friends when they were playing.

 

[AdamMcKraken]

Prince of Persia on an IBM 286 we had

 

[Fuz]

Prince of Persia on an IBM 286 we had

Same.
Only that the 286 was rented from a school.

 

[Last Prime]

 

[turnbasedgod]

😌

 

[DanEON]

 

[bobone]

Played alot of educational stuff, and some wierd DOS centipede clones. But the first "real" game was Warcraft 2 and it away my brother and I. We still quote random dialogue from it over 20 years later.

 

[dcx4610]

Some weird submarine game in the 4th grade on an Apple. I think it may have been educational but I was mesmerized by it.

For PCs, it was definitely Wolfenstein 3D followed by DOOM. Strangely it was Mortal Kombat that got me into PC gaming though. I wasn’t happy with the SNES and Genesis version and some kid had the PC version and brought it to school. I was amazed how much closer the graphics and gameplay were to the arcade and thus started my PC gaming journey.

 

[haozz]

There were two games.

One was a 2D game called Elements where you moved a green ball around a maze-like map. Every step you took used some amount of energy. There were some powerups around the maze that could refill your energy, and there were some objectives you had to hit, like keys, to unlock gates. Basically it was a puzzle game. I haven't been able to find any mention of this game on the internet, so I wonder if it was a local creation that ended up on my parents' computer. There was some cool menu music I recall.

There was another game I played at a friend's house that I don't even remember the name of. But it was a 2-player, 2D platformer type game a la Mario Bros (you could see the whole map at once), although the map was a lot bigger than a Mario Bros level. There were some creepy crawly creatures that walked around the map. All I remember is that it was a two-player game; I don't even recall if it was cooperative or adversarial. I think it's hopeless to try to recall this one.

It'd be cool if anyone could recall these games. This was Windows 95/98 era.

 

[Palabragrís]

Around 1992, playing The Incredible Machine on MS-DOS.
Good times.

 

[DonF]

Prince of persia and commander keen! good times...I also distinctly remember remember playing Bug! on a friends pc. It looked mind blowing at the time.

 

[BANGS]

My earliest memory I have is playing Commander Keen...

 

[Compsiox]

PAJAMA SAM!

or that one Jump Start math game.

 

[Qwan3356]

At school, it would be Oregon Trail or Number Munchers around 1993 but at home it would be Rebel Assult 2 in 1995.

OREGON TRAIL - Freaking GOAT!

 

[lem0n]

Commander Keen 2? Crystal Caves? Maybe some Math Blaster game, idk. One of those. My grandpa kept his home PC upgraded just so I could play games at his place on the weekend <3

My earliest memory I have is playing Commander Keen...

My man

 

[Silvawuff]

My earliest memory? Definitely getting eaten by a grue.

 

[///PATRIOT]

Mines Ninja Gaiden 2 NES.

 

[bakedcrisps]

The Humongous Entertainment games.

Yes sir, the halcyon days of Freddie Fish, Pajama Sam and Spy Fox.

And who could forget the gladiators of the diamond, pitch and gridiron, the Backyard Sports kids. Pablo Sanchez is the greatest video game athlete of all time and it's not close.