# Computer/Video Games Most People Don't Remember **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** video-games-e-games\ **Created:** [March 8, 2024, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594 "2024-03-08T03:41:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/61 "2024-03-09T15:47:38Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > My friend and I played Archon a LOT. Good times. Archon was a big C64 favorite of mine, as was the [Pinball Construction Set](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball_Construction_Set). Put a lot of hours into fine tuning my pinball machines. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/62 "2024-03-09T15:54:17Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Mail Order Monsters fight scenes also remind me of Archon They also shared the same sprite for the Archon evil pawn caveman guy and the Mail Order Monsters random map encounter guy. I’ll go with [Project Firestart](https://www.myabandonware.com/game/project-firestart-5q6), a Commodore 64 game that was one of the earliest survival horror games. You played as a researcher sent to a distressed space ship to find out what’s going on. From one of the very first rooms where you find a dead scientist who wrote “DANGER” in blood from his arm stump it certainly made an impression in the 80s. After that, it was a lot of getting stalked by the space monsters, using a laser pistol with very limited ammo, trying to solve the mysteries, rescue the woman researcher and looming cut scenes showing the hatching of a super-monster alien. You had multiple possible endings based on your actions and it was quite the complete modern package for a game from its era. It’s had a few attempts at a remake but nothing “real” (more fan work) and I never see it referenced these days though I’m sure, of course, _some_ people remember it. ---
**Author:** ![Hoopy\_Frood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hoopy_frood/32/8452_2.png) [@Hoopy\_Frood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoopy_Frood)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/63 "2024-03-09T17:15:49Z")
> **[Eamon (video game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eamon_(video_game))** > > Eamon, sometimes known as The Wonderful World of Eamon, is a game creation system and a role-playing adventure game series created by Donald Brown and released for the Apple II in 1980. The game is a text adventure similar to other early titles like Adventure (1976) or Zork (1980) and to later text-based multi-user dungeons (MUDs), though with many role-playing elements not available in other interactive fiction. Eamon software is non-commercial and is freely available in the public domain Eamon... Also, the very first application I ever used on a computer back when I was 6-years-old (not really a game, but…): > **[Today in Apple history: Apple Logo teaches kids to code](https://www.cultofmac.com/433276/today-in-apple-history-apple-logo-teaches-kids-to-code/)** > > Under Tim Cook's leadership, Apple has been upping its focus on teaching kids to program -- thanks to events such as its free "Hour of Code" classes at > [@griffin1977](#): > > Also Scorched Earth Before there was Scorched Earth, there was Tank Wars. Scorched Earth took Tank Wars to 11. Before Tank Wars, there was Artillery Simulator. A simple physics-simulated game with only two tanks and only a single shot bullet each turn. You adjusted the angel and the “bags” [of gunpowder] (i.e. power of the shot) relative to the wind and shot at each other. Tank Wars expanded upon that by allowing more players (up to 10) and adding more weapons. > **[Artillery game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_game)** > > Artillery games are two or three-player (usually turn-based) video games involving tanks (or simply cannons) trying to destroy each other. The core mechanics of the gameplay is almost always to aim at the opponent(s) following a ballistic trajectory (in its simplest form, a parabolic curve). Artillery games are among the earliest computer games developed; the theme of such games is an extension of the original uses of computer themselves, which were once used to calculate the trajectories of rock... > **[Tank Wars (1990) - MobyGames](https://www.mobygames.com/game/67542/tank-wars/)** > > Tank Wars is a shareware game for two to ten players based on the same ideas as Artillery and it's more well known cousin Scorched Earth. Any of the players can be computer controlled and there are seven different styles of computer opponent. The... ---
**Author:** ![Dogginit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogginit/32/16920_2.png) [@Dogginit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogginit)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/64 "2024-03-09T19:51:42Z")
> [@furryman](#): > > I feel as if some people remembered this game. OK, some do, even my daughter, at the tender age of 17 or 18, picked “Wreck It Ralph” for the AKC registered name of one of our German Shorthaired Pointers. That was about 10 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Dogginit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogginit/32/16920_2.png) [@Dogginit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogginit)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/65 "2024-03-09T20:06:35Z")
A far cry from most of the games mentioned in this thread, I had a game as a youngster on an Apple II+ that (can’t remember the name) had the player doing different surgical procedures, starting small (an appendectomy, IIRC) and getting progressively more difficult. (Let’s see - first computer in '78, so would have been '80 or '81 probably) And I still miss Carmageddon on the PCs. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/66 "2024-03-09T20:28:42Z")
Life or death it had a sequel ---
**Author:** ![Dogginit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogginit/32/16920_2.png) [@Dogginit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogginit)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/67 "2024-03-09T20:32:56Z")
Believe that was it, was later than I remembered it. Getting old is not for sissies. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/68 "2024-03-09T20:38:53Z")
The very first computer I ever bought (from Sears, from like $3,000 (128kRAM, 30Mb drive, if I recall)), I bought so I could play _Stunt Island_. Of course, I had to buy a book and learn how to allocate virtual memory first but I digress. It was this flight simulator / film simulator thingie. There were missions you could fly, but the fun of it was setting up your own stunts and making your own mini-fims. It was all really rudimentary graphics and staticky audio, but otherwise it was pretty robust, with eight different cameras you could film with and edit together. I have a copy, downloaded from freeware, but it doesn’t really translate to 20 year later. The other one I loved - another movie making game - was _The Movies_, where you ran a movie studio, built sets, hired actors and directors and cameramen, etc. You’d “write” scripts by cobbling blocks of set videos together. The set videos could be located in any set, and the actors re-skinned, so you could really get creative. Again, there were missions, but the fun of it was just making movies. I’ve got freeware copy of this one too, but it doesn’t run very well - it tends to crash unless you run it on low graphics, which is stupid for a 15 year old game. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/69 "2024-03-09T21:40:14Z")
Another 80s computer game I loved: Adventure Construction Set: > **[Adventure Construction Set](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Construction_Set)** > > Adventure Construction Set (ACS) is a game creation system written by Stuart Smith that is used to construct tile-based graphical adventure games. ACS was published by Electronic Arts in 1984 for the Commodore 64, then for the Apple II, Amiga, and MS-DOS. Smith previously developed several commercial adventure games of a similar style, such as Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1981). > ACS provides a graphical editor for the construction of maps, placement of creatures and items, and menu-based scr... You could make DnD-like adventures, though they could be any setting you could imagine – i.e. sci-fi, fantasy, modern, historical, etc. It was a lot of work to make a good one, though. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/70 "2024-03-09T22:00:34Z")
Imperium Galactium, Temple of Apshai, Pharaoh’s Curse, Crypts of Terror, Tapper, Blue Max, Star Raiders, Preppie!, Behind Jaggi Lines, Alternate Reality, Shamus, Infocoms, Eastern Front, Seven Cities of Gold, Kingdom, Miner 2049er, Soccer (Thorn Emi), Gunfight, QBert, Encounter… ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/71 "2024-03-09T22:03:53Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Miner 2049er Ooh, that was a tough game on the Commodore 64. Very unforgiving and a lot of fun. It also didn’t allow for pausing or re-starts. So it took a lot of focus to reach and complete the higher levels. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/72 "2024-03-09T22:23:02Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > You could make DnD-like adventures, though they could be any setting you could imagine – i.e. sci-fi, fantasy, modern, historical, etc. It was a lot of work to make a good one, though. ACS was awesome. You could even have it auto-generate adventures that weren’t especially dynamic or as creative as a person could do but would still be playable and fun. The one knock against it were the glacial loading times across multiple disks that took foooooreveeeeer, even by Commodore 64 standards. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/73 "2024-03-09T22:33:57Z")
ACS was fun but I never made anything half decent. Racing and Pinball were better. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/74 "2024-03-09T22:48:11Z")
Never messed with Pinball but Racing was fun. Though it usually degenerated into me making giant ramps and setting the gravity to Io within a half hour or so. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2024, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/75 "2024-03-10T00:10:39Z")
BTW, welcome back! Hadn’t seen you around these parts for a while. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2024, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/76 "2024-03-10T02:40:48Z")
the first game I played on an actual computer(as opposed to a video game console) was a text adventure game where I ended up in a “maze of twisty passages, all like”. (Obviously one of the versions of the 1976 game _Colossal Cave Adventure_.) I haven’t heard anyone talk about text games in decades --I don’t know if anyone is still making them. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2024, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/77 "2024-03-10T03:17:16Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > I haven’t heard anyone talk about text games in decades --I don’t know if anyone is still making them. They make so many of them, in all genres, you would literally not know where to start. I guess most people don’t remember 🙂 I think _Counterfeit Monkey_ came up when someone was looking for a word puzzle game. _Anchorhead_ was an atmospheric horror game. _Spider and Web_ won some prize way back when. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2024, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/78 "2024-03-10T04:29:43Z")
….Agent USA, Dropzone, Karateka, Spy vs. Spy, BC Quest For Tires, Crystal Castles, Fort Apocalypse, Gauntlet, Hardball, Montezuma’s Revenge, Impossible Mission, One on One, Realm of Impossibility, Up n Down, Gateway to Apshai, Summer Games, California Games… ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2024, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/79 "2024-03-10T04:46:35Z")
Oh yeah, although I only knew it as “Adventure” at the time and only had the chance to play it once. I think I still have a roll of computer paper somewhere recording the session. Which reminds me of another old game I liked (although the only similarity is the name); [Adventure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_(1980_video_game)) for the Atari 2600. I played a lot of that. As for text-based games there seems to have been a minor resurgence. Check out the “Choice of” games on Steam; I like [Choice of Robots](https://store.steampowered.com/app/339350/Choice_of_Robots/) quite a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2024, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594/80 "2024-03-10T06:04:58Z")
…Autoduel, Alley Cat, Stealth, Pitfall, International Karate, Jumbo Jet Pilot, Submarine Commander, Joust, Great American Cross Country Road Race, Zombies!, Voodoo Castle, Infidel, Jumpman, Rainbow Walker… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-video-games-most-people-dont-remember/998594.md?page=5)