What is the first game you remember playing?

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The Checkpoints podcast asks a good question of its guests: what's the first video game you remember playing?

At first I was thinking Super Mario Bros. or Wolfenstein 3D. Then I remembered how I really got started with video games was in the '80s, on the family TRS-80, typing out the BASIC code from a book each time I wanted to play. So the first real game I remember playing was this text adventure, The Great Adventure, from the 1985 Hayes kids book Let's Look at BASIC. Collect all 26 letters of the alphabet and escape the dungeon.

In lieu of a screenshot, here's the entire program:

Spoiler:

10 DIMRM(26,5),DI$(4),A$(1)
20 FOR I=1 TO 26
30 J=INT(RND(1)*4+1):RM(I,J)=I+1:IF I=26 THEN RM(I,J)=1
40 K=INT(RND(1)*16-6)
50 FOR L=1 TO K
60 J=INT(RND(1)*4+1):IF J>0 THEN IF RM(I,J)=0 THEN RM(I,J)=INT(RND(1)*26+1)
70 NEXT L
80 RM(I,5)=INT(RND(1)*5+1)
90 NEXT I
100 DI$(1)="N":DI$(2)="S":DI$(3)="E":DI$(4)="W"
110 HP=INT(RND(1)*6+12):GP=0:RB=0:PR=1
120 PRINT:PRINT:PRINT"====================="
130 PRINT"YOU'RE IN ROOM ";CHR$(PR+64):PRINT"PASSAGES LEAD: ";
140 FOR I=1 TO 4
150 IF RM(PR,I)<>0 THEN PRINTDI$(I);" ";
160 NEXT I:PRINT
170 ON RM(PR,5)+1 GOTO 390,180,200,290,330,350
180 PRINT:FG=INT(RND(1)*99+1):PRINT"THERE'S ";FG;" COINS HERE!":GP=GP+FG
190 GOT0390
200 PRINT:PRINT"YIKES! A MONSTER!"
210 MH=INT(RND(1)*9+1):MG=INT(RND(1)*99+1)
220 PRINT"DO YOU (1) FIGHT OR (2) RUN":INPUTWO
230 IF WO<1 OR WO>2 THEN PRINT"COME ON!":PRINT"CHOOSE 1 OR 2!":GOTO220
235 IF WO<>INT(WO) THEN PRINT"COME ON!":PRINT"CHOOSE 1 OR 2!":GOTO220
240 IF W0=2 THEN PRINT:PRINT"HE'LL GET YOU LATER!":GOTO390
250 PRINT"VERY BRAVE!":PRINT"THE MONSTER HAS ";MH;" HIT POINTS"
260 PRINT"AND ";MG; "COINS"
270 HP=HP-MH:GP=GP+MG:IF HP<=0 THEN HP=0:GP=GP-MG:GOTO480
280 GOTO390
290 GOSUB570
300 PRINT"IT EXPLODES!"
310 HP=HP-1:IF HP<=0THEN HP=0:GOTO480
320 GOTO390
330 GOSUB570
340 PRINT"IT HAS A STRENGTH POTION!":HP=HP+INT(RND(1)*3+1):GOTO390
350 PRINT:PRINT"THERE'S A BLACK HOLE!"
360 PRINT"IT SENDS YOU TO ANOTHER ROOM."
370 RM(PR,5)=0:RB=RB+1
380 PR=INT(RND(1)*26+1):PRINT"PRESS 'RETURN' OR 'ENTER'":INPUTA$:GOTO120
390 IF HP<=0 THEN 480
400 PRINT:PRINT"HIT POINTS: ";HP:PRINT"GOLD COINS: ";GP
410 PRINT"ROOMS VISITED: ";RB
420 PRINT:PRINT"WILL YOU GO:":PRINT"1-NORTH 2-SOUTH":PRINT"3-EAST OR 4-WEST"
430 PRINT"CHOOSE 1-4":INPUTWW
440 IF WW<1 OR WW>4 OR WW<>INT(WW) THEN PRINT"VERY FUNNY. TRY AGAIN.":GOTO410
450 IF RM(PR,WW)=0 THEN PRINT"YOU HIT A WALL!":HP=HP-1:GOTO390
460 IF RM(PR,5)<>0 THEN RB=RB+1:IF RB=26 THEN 530
470 RM(PR,5)=0:PR=RM(PR,WW):GOTO120
480 PRINT:PRINT"OH NO! YOU RAN OUT OF STRENGTH AND DIED!"
490 PRINT"YOU HAD BEEN IN ";RB;" ROOMS."
500 PRINT"YOU HAD ";GP;" GOLD COINS."
510 PRINT"BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME."
520 END
530 PRINT:PRINT"CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'VE ESCAPED THE DUNGEON!"
540 PRINT"YOU HAD ";HP;" HIT POINTS."
550 PRINT"YOU HAD ";GP;" GOLD COINS."
560 END
570 PRINT:PRINT"THERE'S A CHEST HERE."FOR I=1 TO 2500:NEXT I:RETURN

So what's yours? No doubt this thread will devolve into who played Spacewar on a PDP-1 first, or who was personally taught by William Higinbotham to play Tennis for Two. But I'd be more curious to know if yet anyone's first video game was on the PlayStation, or was even Angry Birds or Minecraft.

I can't recall but it was either space invaders on intellivision or oregon trail on IBM pc junior

Some weird home console that had "tennis" (pong obvs), bowling and I want to say baseball on it? It had toggles and you just set it to them and turned it on. I was 3 or 4 and I've never found out what it actually was.

When I was about five there were Space Invaders + Asteroids + Pac Man + Defender + Joust cabinets and tables in UK pubs.
My first "games" machine was an Amstrad 464 which we got when I was ten.
A friend of mine had a Atari when I was about eight. I was so jealous !
Another friend had Intellivision which I loved playing so much.

While my dad was working his way through college, he worked for a Amusements distributor who would lease out pinball & pool tables. So I got into pinball pretty early on, say early 70s?

After that I remember projection arcade units. I remember one light-gun game where you used a replica rifle to shoot cans and birds that flew across a projected screen. Another one was called Sub Hunt, I think. It had an actual periscope-viewer you looked through and you shot sub missiles from the bottom of the up to the patrolling battleships on the surface, while avoiding floating submerged mines in the water.

If memory serves, this was all before the days of Pong. These games had a more mechanical element if that makes any sense. But they were certainly an evolution of traditional pinball. Maybe like a bridge between pinball and Pong?

Maybe someone born in the late-60s can back up my foggy memories.

I can't remember which of Pac-Man, Battlezone, and Joust I played first, but my very first video game was probably one of those three.

On a home computer, Scott Adams' Adventure Land on VIC-20. Sword of Fargoal and various arcade-y games, many of which were typed in from books or magazines, followed not long after.

Pong on the Magnavox Odyessy

I honestly think it was Super Mario Bros. at a friend's house.

I used to have a blog dedicated to this topic called Games I Grew Up With.

My first introduction to games was in the good old USSR. My dad's second career was computer use and programming teacher, so he had access to some sweet sweet Yamaha MSX computers. There were three or four games I distinctly remember playing a lot of when I was in his classroom.

Knightmare
IMAGE(http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/konamishooters/knightmare-1.png)

Yi Ar Kung Fu
IMAGE(http://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com/images/1980s/85_Daewoo_Zemmix/msx_ss-YieArKUNG2.gif)

Galaga
IMAGE(http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/124921-galaga-msx-screenshot-uh-oh-my-ship-has-been-captured.png)

And finally something called Child Park, which was actually a knockoff of a Cabbage Patch Kids Babyland Park game
IMAGE(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tkQ9qYjpJgk/hqdefault.jpg)
IMAGE(http://atariage.com/forums/uploads/monthly_02_2014/post-5757-0-68778000-1393096306.png)
IMAGE(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tB6hi340E1E/hqdefault.jpg)

I also played a lot of old Soviet Arcade games, most of which you can find here:
http://www.15kop.ru/en/

PONG on the Odyssey.

I'm going to hobble back into my coffin now.

Aaron D. wrote:

While my dad was working his way through college, he worked for a Amusements distributor who would lease out pinball & pool tables. So I got into pinball pretty early on, say early 70s?

After that I remember projection arcade units. I remember one light-gun game where you used a replica rifle to shoot cans and birds that flew across a projected screen. Another one was called Sub Hunt, I think. It had an actual periscope-viewer you looked through and you shot sub missiles from the bottom of the up to the patrolling battleships on the surface, while avoiding floating submerged mines in the water.

If memory serves, this was all before the days of Pong. These games had a more mechanical element if that makes any sense. But they were certainly an evolution of traditional pinball. Maybe like a bridge between pinball and Pong?

Maybe someone born in the late-60s can back up my foggy memories.

You mean electro-mechanical games like Periscope and Duck Hunt? Those and pinball were my first arcade games just before Asteroids, Space Invaders, and Pac-Man came out. My parents had pong, but I thought it was boring.

I don't remember the exact timeline but it probably went something like this (I realise technically I'm cheating but I think as far as I can recall these were the first games I played on systems I had regular access to)...

IMAGE(http://www.8-bitcentral.com/images/reviews/atari2600/combat2600Screen2.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.fraserking.co.uk/spectrum/screenshots/Horace_Goes_Skiing.png)

IMAGE(http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Sinclair_ZX_Spectrum/Snap/big/Oh_Mummy_-_1984_-_Gem_Software.jpg)

Thankfully we moved on to the Amiga pretty quickly...

IMAGE(https://thebucketdiary.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/thundercats-game-screenshot-2.png)

IMAGE(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/rsuWgLEQBxM/maxresdefault.jpg)

IMAGE(http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Commodore_Amiga/Snap/big/Wizball_-_1988_-_Ocean_Software_Ltd..jpg)

Spoiler:

Combat (Atari), Horace Goes Skiing (Dragon something or other), Oh Mummy! (Spectrum), Thundercats, Elite and Wizball (Amiga)

Earliest I remember is Sonic 2 on the Genesis, though we had an Atari 2600 so I'm sure I played stuff on that too.

Still remember the best paths through most of Sonic 2 all these years later.

IMAGE(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a8/Yars_Revenge_cover.jpg/250px-Yars_Revenge_cover.jpg)

The first I ever saw was Pong, but the first I remember ever actually playing was Pac-Man.

LouZiffer wrote:

You mean electro-mechanical games like Periscope and Duck Hunt? Those and pinball were my first arcade games just before Asteroids, Space Invaders, and Pac-Man came out. My parents had pong, but I thought it was boring.

That's pretty much the same wheelhouse, but I don't think my examples were Sega produced.

I know the rifle game was not enclosed in a cabinet. It was an open-air deal kind of like those hoop games where you shoot mini-basketballs as fast as you can. But my memory was of a rear-projection screen and a generally 1:1 sized rifle-modeled light gun.

A quick YouTube perusal brought up two Midway sub games that triggered a long-lost memory.

Sea Devil (1966)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB5E...

Sea Wolf (1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jshq...

I've 100% played both of these in the early to mid 70's. Though Sea Devil is most certainly electro-mechanical, so that might disqualify it as an actual video game. As such, I'd have to get all boring and go back to OG Pong. But that's no fun.

Aaron D. wrote:
LouZiffer wrote:

You mean electro-mechanical games like Periscope and Duck Hunt? Those and pinball were my first arcade games just before Asteroids, Space Invaders, and Pac-Man came out. My parents had pong, but I thought it was boring.

Sea Devil (1966)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB5E...

Sea Wolf (1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jshq...

Hah!
http://morskoy-boy.15kop.ru/en/game/

Incredible!

I guess Oregon Trail. We could play it in the computer lab if we stayed after school.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/HU2CPJ3.jpg)

It was probably Pesky Painter on the Commodore 64, back in 1984.

I'm fairly sure it was Tooth Invaders (Commodore64) at home. It was an action game about dental hygiene, complete with brushing, flossing, and dead teeth. It was apparently not horrible enough to start me down the road to being a lifelong gamer. This would have been right around Christmas of 1982.
If it wasn't that, then it was Bezerk (Atari 2600) at a friend's house. He had other games too, but I don't remember what they were.

IMAGE(https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3240/3158441851_bfa52b84ec_z.jpg?zz=1)

My folks had a Tandy TV Game Plus which had Pong and some lightgun games. I remember cutting the cord on the lightgun so we could take it outside and play with it.

After that it would have to be the Atari 2600(Joust) at a friends house, and then an NES(Super Mario Bros) we got when I was about 6 or 7.

First video game related memory: being scared half to death one night by the talking pinball machine in a darkened alcove of the student center where my dad was in grad school. Apparently it was a Bally Eight Ball Deluxe - the phrase "stop talking and start chalking" still rings with sinister intent in my mind.

Earliest games I remember playing were Centipede on a friend's Intellivision and Lode Runner on my uncle's Apple. Once we had a PC at home, I'm pretty sure the first thing I played was the very creatively titled Castle Adventure.

IMAGE(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/84/CastleAdventure1.png)

cartoonin wrote:

IMAGE(https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3240/3158441851_bfa52b84ec_z.jpg?zz=1)

That was at my cousins' place.

Pong is the first game I recall ever playing, followed by, I think, Space Invaders.

I have no clue what the first was, but the first one I can recall was Donkey Kong on Colecovision. I know my brother played the Star Wars game for Colecovision, and we had other games, but Donkey Kong is the only one I actively remember.

After that, it could have been anything on the NES which we got shortly after our Colecovision broke, it could have been TIGER Handhelds, it could have been arcade games... it's too much a blur. Video games were always present.

I'm sure the first I played was in the arcade somewhere - probably Pac-Man. The first I remember playing was Combat on the Atari at my godfather's house:
IMAGE(http://www.8-bitcentral.com/images/reviews/atari2600/combat2600Screen2.jpg)

I'm old enough now, and was young enough then, that I honestly can't remember exactly. A family friend had an Atari 2600, I think, and I briefly got my hands on it at some time before kindergarten probably. (I was born in 1974.) Memories from 35+ years ago get hazy.

I remember being powerfully excited about Atari Adventure, and it was definitely a seminal game as far as cementing my love for game consoles. Every video game experience since then is chasing the same high of exploring a seemingly vast world with dangerous enemies to complete a quest.

Although Zork I was not technically the first game, it is probably more interesting to mention than whatever was technically "first," as it was some kind of revelation where I was like "oh yes, this is what I want from life." I remember being desperate to get in sessions with it on the single early PC we had in my elementary school library. Atari Adventure was exciting, sure, but this made me feel like you could spin fully formed worlds out of the ether.

Neither of those two stand the test of time, but I can say that I have consistently enjoyed pretty much the same form of entertainment for my entire life.

Pong on a old sears pong machine. First arcade game was a Pac Man with a grey scale screen. Had to get up on a stool to play it. I can remember that like it was yesterday. I was 5 years old.

Both games are from 1990 when I was 4 years old. Probably didn't really play them until I was 6m though.

DuckTales: The Quest for Gold

IMAGE(http://www.myabandonware.com/media/screenshots/d/disneys-duck-tales-the-quest-for-gold-9v7/disneys-duck-tales-the-quest-for-gold_15.gif)

Mickey's ABC's: A Day at The Fair

IMAGE(http://www.hitrepeat.com/imagehost/20081010425294.jpg)

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