Name a game that changed your life

Started by milkanannan, Sat 10/10/2020 19:32:04

Previous topic - Next topic

Olleh19

Now i almost feel bad, cause i never gave Driver a testdrive as a kid  :-[. Destruction Derby 2, Carmageddon 1 was my games. And dare i say it. A Swedish classic probably unknown to you guys, called Ignition,  it's a great fun racing game!
Thanks for the nice story time Jack!

Marcin K.

Maniac Mansion blew my head apart but real lifechanger was Duke Nukem 3D. We stole this game (few hours of downloading from the pirate FTP) and played on LAN in my school in public open computer room. Making long story shor: for 4 month I was walking to the building, passing the guard, walking to the classroom and played DN3D for 6 hours. I never managed to get to a lecture or class. It was the end of my IT studies. I took a break and went to study filmmaking.

Olleh19

#22
Quote from: Marcin K. on Fri 23/10/2020 23:38:35
Maniac Mansion blew my head apart but real lifechanger was Duke Nukem 3D. We stole this game (few hours of downloading from the pirate FTP) and played on LAN in my school in public open computer room. Making long story shor: for 4 month I was walking to the building, passing the guard, walking to the classroom and played DN3D for 6 hours. I never managed to get to a lecture or class. It was the end of my IT studies. I took a break and went to study filmmaking.


Good choice in life! Both duke and filmmaking. IT? Booooring. (laugh) I actually also thought Maniac Mansion was really cool, i bought it cause of the cover art. Even tho i didn't get any far in the game as a kid on Nintendo. Which version did you play?

Marcin K.

Quote from: Olleh19 on Sat 24/10/2020 01:09:23
Good choice in life! Both duke and filmmaking. IT? Booooring. (laugh) I actually also thought Maniac Mansion was really cool, i bought it cause of the cover art. Even tho i didn't get any far in the game as a kid on Nintendo. Which version did you play?

I wanted to learn coding but it was level hard and math where 2 + 2 doesn't make 4 made my brain melt.

Commodore 64. This game was pure magic for me (though my english was very weak and dictionary didn't help much and I had to xero a solution from a magazine). I got it because I read about it in som ranking of groundbreaking games. We had no boxed games - only pirate copies.


Every saturday, in basement of local elementary school there was a "market" - people used to bring their computers, monitors etc and disc collections with a catalogues - binders with pages from foreign game magazines and were making copies on demand and you paid per disk.

Back then we had no consoles at all in Poland until 90s when we had pirated clones of Famicom and Atari 2600. Yup, it took us about 10 years to catch up with the world after fall of communism :)

Pogwizd

#24
That's a nice topic milkanannan.

I'm going to name only one game, Tropico 1. Saying that it changed my life would probably be an exaggeration, but it definitely enriched it (a lot). In my book the game is near perfect and I occasionally go back to it. But the main reason I have a soft spot for it is because it sparked my interest in the Spanish language, Cumbias, Chichas or Hispanic America in general. Now, I don't know what is it like in your countries but in mine the only thing I was taught in school about that part of the world was that it existed... So Tropico was like this gentle push in the back towards books and looking stuff up.

(Yes, I know that Hispanic America means a lot of countries and cultural diversity. I don't want to generalise. I just want to show that thanks to the game I'm more than curious about new things).

Enjoy :D: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n78vyOFQc_s&ab_channel=WorldCircuitRecords

Pogwizd

#25
Marcin, is that the image from the market at ul. Grzybowska? Isn't that also the place where CD Projekt (the guys behind the Witcher) started their business as a retailer in the '90s? :D

Marcin K.

Quote from: Pogwizd on Sat 24/10/2020 09:50:09
Marcin, is that the image from the market at ul. Grzybowska? Isn't that also the place where CD Projekt (the guys behind the Witcher) started their business as a retailer in the '90s? :D
None other :D

https://wyborcza.pl/7,156282,22162774,gielda-na-grzybowskiej-tutaj-narodzil-sie-cd-projekt-i-to.html

I pass the CDP every time I bike to discount (Biedra ;) ) for my groceries :D

Marcin K.

I should add Leisure Suit Larry 5. Not that I particulary love this game but its graphic style turned my world upside down. I dicovered the world where straight, paralel lines don't exist and laws of perspective are severly violated. I'm faithfull to this style to this day.



milkanannan

Quote from: Marcin K. on Sat 24/10/2020 10:39:24
I should add Leisure Suit Larry 5. Not that I particulary love this game but its graphic style turned my world upside down. I dicovered the world where straight, paralel lines don't exist and laws of perspective are severly violated. I'm faithfull to this style to this day.



Haha it is funny you should mention that specific game and that specific style, because it also resonated with me. "Wait, doors/buildings don't have to be rectangles?! Limousines can be 800 car doors long?!" I remember I used to draw little choose-your-own-adventure games in this style.

Yeah, LSL5's entire world was pretty unique, you're right, and for some reason they toned it down in LSL6. ???

Mandle

The original Civ2 when it first came out... Took away months of my life, made me a social outcast, and I've never been the same again, except that I'm alright now, no really, mid-nighties, what were they?! SHUT-UP!!! YOU LIE!!!

FormosaFalanster

Quote from: Mandle on Tue 23/02/2021 07:05:20
The original Civ2 when it first came out... Took away months of my life, made me a social outcast, and I've never been the same again, except that I'm alright now, no really, mid-nighties, what were they?! SHUT-UP!!! YOU LIE!!!

I remember playing this one a lot too! I ended up giving myself challenges. One of them was the city-state scenario. I'd name my first city Hong-Kong and see how long I could last. It actually worked, with a different strategy, some things that are costly in the game you don't need anymore but others become more efficient, I ended up on Alpha Centauri :D

Once I did it but customizing the map to be an archipelago, called my city Singapore, and lasted to Alpha Centauri as well.

Moriya_17

Changed my life? Unfortunately, none really gave a different direction to my life, so, instead, I'll go for those I'll never forget and which left a lasting impression.
The first one would be Red Baron, the first one that came out in 1990; it was my first air combat game, and the first one to develop my interest for aviation. Since then, I haven't become a pilot - you need to be at least decent at math for that - but have always been interested in military history and aviation.
The second one would be Stalker Clear Sky. No, not Shadow of Chernobyl: the cover art really made it look like a horror game, a genre I didn't like back in 2007. It's a game that sparked my interest in the post-apocalyptic genre, and was the first domino in a chain that led me to learn Russian and live in Russia these days.

WHAM

For me it would have to be NetHack.

Back in the days we had an early Window 3.11 computer, but no internet connection. My mom was also adamant that no games were allowed on the computer, because it was only for work and study.
I read in the Finnish "Pelit" (Games) magazine a number of articles about NetHack and, despite the crude visuals, the wealth of systems and details mesmerized me.

I stole one of my moms empty 1.44 megabyte diskettes and snuck it to school with me. There I waited for our weekly one hour visit to the computer class, where I downloaded NetHack, put it on the diskette, and snuck it back home in secrecy. I hid the game in a folder on the computer and played it for countless hours while home alone. Maybe the fact I had to be so secretive about this forbidden form of entertainment added something to the experience, but the sheer level of detail and possibility in NetHack was staggering to me at the time. Teaching my pet cat to steal spell scrolls from shop, learning the ins and outs of worship and favours, reaching Minetown for the first time and discovering friendly NPC's other than shopkeepers, getting my first wish and using the gaming magazine wish guide to get the best armour in the game early... So many experiences, and so many things I still wish modern games did.

That gaming experience led to me interest in games evolving out of the early console games on the Sega Megadrive, led to me growing increasingly excited to read about more new games in magazines, led to me learning how to use early internet, and led to me growing interested enough in games to, eventually, try and make my own simple games.
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Mandle

WHAM, what a great story!

Takes me back to stealing time on my local library backroom computer room on the pretense of doing "computer studies", only to play Aztec and Ultima II on pirated copies, all the while.

I only got 20 mins before getting kicked out, but I got far enough into Ultima II to nag my parents enough to buy a computer for me and then I was off and running.

milkanannan

Yeah I remember computer class being great for this sort of thing, too! (laugh) In the 90s, kids knew light years more about computers/ the internet than adults, so we were constantly getting hacked 'Gamez' as they were called, and setting up really basic terminal chat software onto the computers in our school's lab so we could 'chat' while in computer class (I'm sure IRC was around at this time, but I think ICQ had still not really become a thing). It was a really exciting time because the tech was evolving so quickly. Always some new covert project for junior high kids to be working on. (laugh)

spartikMax

Mass Effect 1 and 2 part. Great game, great storyline. Of course, there are still quite a few games that each change something in us. For example, Mafia 2 taught me to value friends.
Metro and Stalker taught us to value life.
Best online games - Cosmolot - http://deathmask.kiev.ua/

Danvzare

You know, every time I see this thread pop-up, I always feel a little left out. Simply because I can't think of any games that's had a profound impact on my life.
I've heard lots of stories about the first game someone played, but I can't remember the first game I played. All I can say is that I was probably one or two years old, and it was probably on the Amiga.

No game has taught me something I couldn't have learnt elsewhere. I mean sure, Deus Ex was the first story I played where you find out you were working for the bad guys all along, and Buck Rogers Countdown to Doomsday was my first experience with the derelict spaceship that has a deadly virus in it. But I would've encountered those tropes eventually, with or without those games. They were simply my first encounter with them.

And when it comes down to a message that I've really taken to heart. I simply draw a blank.
Maybe I'm just being picky. But I think I've learnt all of the really important life changing stuff from the people I know.

But if I had to choose a game which had the most impact on me. It would have to be Dwarf Fortress. Simply because I've been in contact with someone for several years now, trading a save back and forth, and writing down what happened in a fun story, all because of that game. It's been fun.
I suppose I could also add Day of the Tentacle to that list of having an impact, because I once said that I wanted to make games like that, and for some unknown reason, I've taken that one statement very literal. Although it's got nothing to do with me being on the AGS forums. That's because I was looking for an engine to make RPGs, and the reason I first got into RPGs was because of Secret of Mana. Also speaking of loose connections, the only reason I got into Deadpool when I did (which was way before the movie came out), was because of Marvel Ultimate Alliance. And the only reason I got into My Little Pony was because of Project Zomboid, which I only got into because of Thief and Resident Evil. I can trace a lot of things back to games. But I can't say anything changed my life. (Mostly because I can trace those things even further back to non-game.)

It's nice to know that others can say that though.  :-D

Snarky

King's Quest I VGA. It was the game that made me discover AGS.

Trout

X-Wing, the 1993 videogame (but I got it in 1994), quite changed my life.

My father got a promotion and he gave me two CD-ROM games as a present. The first was X-Wing collector's edition.
I already had Rebel Assault and -apart from the graphics- I didn't like it. In my country there was no Star Wars cult at that time, so I didn't care about the movies either.
So I was like, "dad, after Rebel Assault, you really think I care to shoot some random parallelepiped?"
And my father said: "just play it".
Not only I became a huge Star Wars fan, but I also got greatly interested in astronomy and science, which affected my academic life (come to think of it, I don't know why :grin: :grin:)

Funny note: the second videogame that my father gave me was Day of the tentacle  :shocked:

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk