Saw a post on Twitter that made me think of some of my fav childhood games. I learned how to use the home computer at a pretty young age and there are some vague memories of games from when I was even younger, but outside of big names I struggle to remember them.
Rollercoaster Tycoon was not a game bought for me. My mom used to be a bit of a PC gamer back in the day. Mom hesitated to let me play it at first just bc he thought it might be too difficult for me, but I was able to catch on to the basics. I also played a lot a lot of Zoo Tycoon, but RC Tycoon did come first.
I remember playing all of the Magic School Bus PC games at the library as a kid. They were all fun, but I as an animal lover the Rainforest one stuck with me the most.
I was always begging my mom at every scholastic book fair to buy me Catz. I can't remember for sure if 5 was the version I had, but I think it was. It had where you could breed the catz. I got it in a two pack that had Dogz as well, but I played Catz way more.
I've played a lot of Barbara's games over the years, but Pet Rescue was my favorite. I replayed this one so many times. My other favorite was Barbie as Rapunzel. It had almost 0 to do with the movie. You went through the castle and got decorate the rooms. Played basically like Project Makeover but without having the match game part.
Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel (1989): Many of the magic tricks that would go on to amaze the world in Myst can be seen in a more experimental form in this open-ended, non-linear, story-free exploration game. The surrealist freedom to go wherever you wanted, and to loop back to previously visited locations via surprising connections, made it very hard to know when you had found everything, making the game world feel, to my child self, like it was much larger than it actually was.
Wing Commander II: Wrath of the Kilrathi (1991/1992): I don't think it's an accident that so many of these games are sequels. The experiments by developers in their initial games were paying off in the second round, right at the moment personal computers were exploding as a market. Prior to the release of Doom, early flight and space combat sims offered some of the more intense and immersive action experiences on desktops, but more importantly, WC2 aspired to a cinematic style of storytelling whose potential was obvious to anyone paying attention. It wouldn't be until the explosion of FMV games in the CD-ROM era that we would collectively realize that maybe it would take a little while longer for Video Games to be the new Movies.
Star Control II (1992): I hardly need to lionize how big a deal SC2 was, given that you can play it for free thanks to the support of a decades-old fandom. More than just being a superlative game of its era, however, SC2 undoubtedly planted seeds in the minds of one-day game developers. It's genuinely strange mix of cartoony arcade action, deadpan humor, and grim musings on topics like slavery and genocide felt less like a tonally inconsistent mess and more like a bunch of distinct, polished games that happened to be living together in the same apartment.
Master of Orion II: Battle At Antares (1996): As much as the 90s offered a dense forest of compelling and franchise-launching strategy games to lose oneself in, it was MOO2 that I played until the wheels came off. Probably the first game I accidentally played until dawn, it polished the mechanics and aesthetic of its DOSier predecessor to a mirror shine. With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that Alpha Centauri was a richer, deeper game, and that Starcraft had wider appeal and a higher skill ceiling. But at the time, MOO2 struck some magic balance where I could effortlessly sink beneath its surface and not come up for air for hours.
Hhnnngg I wish I could actually attach images to my posts (pls find a way to fix this, cohost team, I hope someone takes you up on that bug bounty you posted), so pls imagine the box art for the games above this text.
We're talking "defining childhood" but most of the below titles I encountered into my adolescence. I guess I just don't have that much to say about like Battle City or Bomber Man. Also some of the timeline might be messed up because I'm going from memory here.
Jagged Alliance 2:
Absolutely seminal title. In certain ways still unequaled as a fusion of "zoomed-out" strategic play and moment-to-moment tactical tension. The personality test you can take to create your own mercenary is an unforgettable little twist for self-expression in a genre that's generally distant.
Baldur's Gate:
I took a quick trip through Beamdog's enhanced edition a while back and it honestly hasn't held up as well as, say Fallout has in 2023, but as far as opening up the possibilities of storytelling in games for me (especially PC games), it's up there with any truly seminal console/JRPG.
Final Fantasy VI:
Speaking of seminal console RPGs..FFVI is so good! So much has been said about it at this point that anything I say will just retread previous commentary, but the entry to Zozo sticks in my head as a real inflection point in my understanding of what was possible in a game. Just seeing the music change, the perpetual rainfall, the hostile random encounters inside areas that seemed safe, just the way the interaction of various decisions can just make a completely different-feeling part of the adventure. Total mood shift.
Wing Commander IV:
The most AAA game of its time, before the terminology was even coined for use in game production. Seeing Mark Hammil (who i didn't even recognize at the time because hell if I knew the names of actors in movies) ham it up in FMV before sending you out on a mission in your kickass fighters, is unforgettable.
I don't have much to add to this but anyone who's played The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis can hear this stage right now.
FLEENS?! YOU'RE NOT FLEEEEENS!