Who Remembers....
 

During some after dinner conversation at the weekend I was asked, what was the first adventure game you ever played?

The question triggered a very distant memory of an Amstrad Computer with monochrome green monitor and cassette tape loading...

The games that I remember where "Gremlins" taken from the film and I think the other game was "Subsunk", I was quite surprised by this total recall as it followed several bottles of Bud and large quantity of new world Shiraz!

Anyone else remember these games.

David

Mine was was Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards (1987)
but i dont know the game Gremlins you mentioned

That's an easy one for me. It was Shadowgate on NES. That's why it's my avatar.

Mine was...

http://www.twinbee.org/hob/play.php?snap=hobbit

You can play it online.

I remember the Gremlins game but Subsunk doesn't ring a bell.

First, at least as far as I know, was KQVI, probably around the time it was new. My brother and I played the game on our auntie's computer. I remember my brother printed out a full walkthrough, so many pages of paper! xD

Mine was Monkey Island.
I was spoiled from the start. The magazine it came with included a walkthrough of the whole game. Naturally I used it from start to finish. Took me a long time to drop the habit. I think I only recently developed the patience to take a break from an adventure instead of immediately peeking at the solution.

Mine was Polarware's Transylvania. At least, that's the first one to really burn itself into my memory.

That "menacing werewolf" with glowing eyes scared me when I was a little kid!

I couldn't narrow it down to a specific game but it most likely was either Police Quest for the Tandy 1000 or Maniac Mansion for the NES.

Phantasmagoria grabbed my attention as a mile stone in my gaming history,
but if i had to pick the game that got me addicted(my wife too) it would have to be Myst.

ps Anyone played Outcry ?

David

Mine was either Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (the floppy version without speech, not the CD-version with speech) or Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards.

I don't remember exactly, it's been nearly 20 years...

yeah sure it a long time but i guess (for me) you cant forget the 1st adventure you played which grabbed you all these years to this genre..

i still remember LSL1 (that was like 24 years ago) and how it took me 2 days to discover after lots of trails and errors (Look for handle, push door,search for door Knob....etc) that i had just to write "open door" .. to get inside Lefty's Bar.

My first 5 were:

Pilot Brothers: On The Track Of Striped Elephant (does anyone know it? ;) )
Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail
Stupid Invaders
Syberia
Syberia 2

I remember playing the demo to Sam and Max Hit the Road at my friend's house around 1994. He had a computer and I didn't, but I had seen Sam and Max everywhere in the gaming magazines and was instantly interested due to the cartoon graphics (I was 11).

DOS games looked like they were from the future compared to what I was playing (Sega Master System) so I knew I had to twist my parent's arm into buying a computer.

I'm having hard time remembering what would be the first. Larry 1 probably. But I hardly knew how to play that, my first playthrough must have been Loom. Also tried to play Future Wars back then but it was too hard for me.

Gremlins and Subsunk are too old games for me, I think I have seen the Gremlins one at some point somewhere, but I was 2 when those came out.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text game was my first. Dad brought home an Apple ][+ from work when they upgraded and we went to the Apple store for advice and saw games! The Hitchhiker's box intrigued me (I still have it) and that was the beginning. The first graphic adventure was Myst that came with a shiny new PacBell and I was thrilled.

It was all downhill from there. ;)

If you want me to put it that way: as far as I can remember, Larry was probably the very first adventure game I ever played (only slightly earlier than Indiana Jones, though), but Fate of Atlantis is the first one that really grabbed me.

But I've always been more of a LucasArts gamer. I hated (and still hate) all the dying and dead ends in the early Sierra titles...

Tell me about it :D , esp. KQ's ;i hadnt played them until SQ4 was released and then i played the 1st three part (KQ) and you know dying in them were more than playing,Actually it was stupid!! just to make wrong turn or open a door and ZAAAP! somebody or some wizard kills and game over!! and then i remember thinking at that time that being killed because of going out with a condom without paying the clerk (LSL1) was unfair :D

The first adventure game that I played was a text adventure but I have no idea what it was called. The only thing that I remember from it was that you had to get a bird in a cage and use it to drive away a snake that was blocking your path.

My first graphic adventure was The Dagger of Amon Ra. I played with a friend. It was the first and only time that I ever played an adventure game with someone. After that I was totally hooked and tried to play every adventure game I could find.

I guess you are talking here about King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne?

Right after I got my first computer, a friend lent me a bunch of games and a collection of game guides and walkthroughs in a book form. Seriously! It was called "The Encyclopedia of Computer Games Vol. 1" or something to that effect. I don't think that a second volume ever came out. That was not in an English-speaking country by the way. That was right before the Internet started making inroads where I lived at the time so I guess it was the best way to get your hands on a walkthrough.

Anyway, one of the games my friend gave me was the first Simon the Sorcerer, which I played through relying entirely on the walkthrough in the book. I was spellbound (no pun intended).

Unfortunately, it was also the start of a bad habit since I played my first several adventures by following a walkthrough and that includes the first Gabriel Knight, Indy and the FoA, and a number of other classics. It is a pity since using a walkthrough does interfere with one's enjoyment of the game's atmosphere as it prevents you from fully immersing yourself in it.

I played Maniac Mansion, Shadowgate and Deja Vu on my fancy NES console back in the late 80's/early 90's before I even knew what adventure games were.

I played one of the early Leisure Suit Larry's together with an equally innocent friend on her Commodore 64 without ever understanding what the game was actually about (ooh pretty colours!).

The first AGs I played on a computer of my own were Beneath a Steel Sky and Day of the Tentacle. Without sound.

Good times.

I can't say for certain since it's been a couple decades, but it was one of a trio of ICOM games played circa 1991 back in my NES days: Shadowgate, Uninvited and Deja Vu.

Myst on a 486.
I still have the 486.

That was the first game I played as well! Got it to go with my new IBM-PC around 1981 or so. I think it was called something like, just Adventure, or Colossal Cave, something like that.

~ Rick

I'm pretty sure I know what u r talking about (isn't it?). I think i even should have this somewhere. :)

No, I am not from Estonia. It's still in the Eastern Bloc but quite a bit to the South. :P I am not excluding the possibility that we are talking about different translations of the same book though.

Ooh, wow, brings back memories!
The first adventure I ever played was Dark Seed for the Commodore 64. Man, that game spooked me when I was about 12 I think.
Played it again recently using some kind of emulator - very disappointing

Apart from that, the only adventure game I remember from sooo long ago is Monkey Island - again for the C64 I think.

This is exactly why some things from our youth should remain there, lest we destroy precious memories...

My first was Amazon on the C64 - http://www.mobygames.com/game/amazon

Its a text adventure (with some static graphics) written by Michael Crichton. It came with this huge awesome printed map of the amazon.

Tough game with lots of constant saving, random dying (jumped upon by jaguars, cannibals, traps, pits and what have you), and sitting with a pad of paper and taking notes, and marking it on the map. But in spite of that it set up an immersive world that just drew you in. Still have lots of fond memories of sitting with my dad and brother and playing it.

Text adventures were a bit before my time, I'm afraid. But I did one about a year ago, it was rereleased for free online as a browser game and was either based on or inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I didn't play it until the end. Turned out that I had missed one item which a gargoyle thing flew off with. No means of getting it back. And it was impossible to complete the game without it.

But I really immersed myself in the game, I could basically see everything that went on in my mind. Real fun! I might track it down again later, and play through it. And remember to take that item before the gargoyle thing does. ;)

The Day of the Tentacle, I think. I know I was very young because I had to get my older sister or an adult to talk to Dr. Fred for me, because his voice scared me.

It must have been King's Quest 1 or Police Quest 3.

Technically it was Star Trek Kobayashi Maru, Mickey Mouse Space Adventure, Winnie the Pooh or Murder on the Mississippi on the Commodore 64. But I usually count Monkey Island and the LSL1/PQ1/SQ1 pack that we got when we first got a PC.

Was it Scott Adam's "Pirate Adventure"?

Because my first adventure game is easily one of the best memories of my whole life. My parents bought a Commodore PET computer, and purchased (in addition to a forgettable Avalon Hill space game) two CASSETTE tapes (or was it one double-sided?) which included Scott Adam's original "Adventure" and of course, "Pirate Adventure."

It's where I learned what a chigger was. Seriously, though, the memories I have of being a kid with my parents around that green screen trying to puzzle out the most ridiculous puzzles known to man - and just to let you know, that was no mongoose.

I must have been, 8? 9? and yet I still remember the non-goose.

I'll add that we also played Infocom's "Suspect" together, but...I remember my parents giving up on that. I still have never solved it, in some way, knowing that that mystery still exists...well...

Man, those are some truly fantastic memories.

I feel the same way about Murder on the Mississippi. I tell myself one day I'll solve it, but I know I never will...