The crazy thing is just how expensive those games were. That $70 in 1999 is worth about $130 today. Could you imagine paying $130 for a game? But I remember in the 80s, games were standard around $20-$40. I’m looking at a March 1988 edition of Compute’s Gazette and that’s the range I see, so that would be like $50-$100 today. That’s crazy thinking about it.
I don’t think at the time using the word “lever” as a verb would have even occurred to me. I would have been like 13 at the time? Hopefully “move” or some synonym would be understood by the parser. I have memories of reading the walkthrough (it was a substitution cipher with symbols, so you had to work at it a bit), and spelling out LEVER THE BOULDER WITH THE RAKE AND THE HOE and my seventh-grade self saying “what in the fuck” to himself.
Some games were very expensive, I remember some in 1982 costing $50-100 in 1982 dollars, when a dollar might be worth $4 today.
Fortunately, I knew four people who owned an “archiver” and… were eager to fairly trade things under traditional libertarian principles.
Parser games in general seemed to be made to have really weird, difficult to get through spots that simply were not obvious.
I have a vague memory of playing The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and having a helluva time getting the damned fish in my ear.
(As an aside, you can play The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy text game for free online…officially free, no download, play in your browser.)
Eh, from the POV of developers, games had been stalled at “low” costs for quite some time. Thus, so many new games recently starting at the $70 price point. So, smack in the middle of the estimate above. And, let’s not forget, modern games expect to sell you at least half that much again in DLC, and possibly quite a lot more in microtransactions. And possibly 10-20 years later, another chunk in some remaster.
But, you’re totally right that it was a huge chunk of change when (as I remember it at least) the belief that only kids were playing the video games, so it was a parental purchase, not a mix of parents buying games for kids and adults buying games for themselves.
Or, for console games at least, kids bugging their folks to rent (yes, those were the days!) a video game for a few bucks a day and the parents going sure, because it might keep them occupied for a long weekend / holiday / etc where they didn’t have to entertain them all day.
Yeah, I’m a casual gamer, so I don’t think I’ve paid more than $20 for a game in the last decade or so. Wait … I paid $21.44 for Obra Dinn two years ago, oh, and $21.44 for OMORI, and that’s been my most expensive purchases since I started a steam account in 2010.
And on the phone app stores, people seem to bitch and complain if something is more than $10; hell even $5 people grouse about. I remember the shitty $10 value software you would get from K-Mart whose games were a total crapshoot and the majority were just awful, looking back (though Mastertronic did have some good games and some total stinkers. The Last V8 was terrible, but great soundtrack and that vocal sample in the beginning was something back then.) For $10, in 2024 dollars no less, you can get some incredible stuff.
…Kaboom!, Mr. Robot (and his robot factory), Jungle Hunt, Burt’s Brew Biz, Lunar Lander, Lemmings, Arkanoid, Qix, Zork(s), Baldur’s Gate, Super Zaxxon, Pirates of the Barbary Coast…
Spy vs. Spy was awesome.
If you know a better way to get 6500 games for $7.99 off an Office Depot register endcap, I’d like to hear it.
Fez (perhaps not forgotten?)
Some bridge building game where you bought metal and bid on truss, cantilever and suspension bridge projects. I also can’t remember the first Atari 3D chess game.
…Wizard of Wor, Hard Hat Mack, Ball Blazer, Prince of Persia, Seventh Guest, Tempest, Racing Destruction Set, Darts (Thorn Emi), Kickback, Rally Speedway, Dr. J and Larry Bird Go One on One, Wargames…
2nd worst game: Gremlins.
Re Archon
I don’t know if it’s forgotten. There was a version for the iPhone. I consider Archon Ultra (the 90’s update) the finest video game ever made.
Fool’s Errand
A great game. I’ve never played the sequel though.
Gremlins
Is there more than one version? The one I have has cga graphics and is a ton of fun.
To be fair, atarimania.com rates it much higher than I did. However, I agree Archon is essentially a perfect game.
I don’t think we’re going to come across too many games that are truly forgotten. Unless there’s a game nobody here can remember I guess.
When looking at prices, I think maybe the N64 was a bit of an outlier at the time because Nintendo owned the cartridge manufacturing process so every developer had to go though them just to get a game physically made, which is beyond whatever licensing/seal of approval/etc. they needed to pay for. That, plus the “quality over quantity” stance Nintendo took on games inherently meant they were going to charge more.
Quarantine: A game where you play as a taxi driver in a game where the populace has largely gone violently insane. You take people on rides to make money, shooting everything in your way with various weapons, then do missions to advance the plot. In the final mission you deliver a nuclear bomb (painted with a smiley-face) to the headquarters of the antagonists.
Crash and Burn: A racing game with armed vehicles.
Syndicate & Syndicate Wars: A tactical game where you field a team of mind controlled cyborgs as a low-level executive of a cyberpunk megacorporation.
The Horde: A tower defense/strategy game with strong humorous elements.
Shockwave: Sci-fi combat flight sim whose style I liked and played a lot.
Flashback: RPG platformer/puzzle game.
Jetpack: a game where you control a guy with a jetpack and collect emeralds. I liked it enough that I supported the sequel that was on Kickstarter (back in 2012). According to the Wikipedia article, the sequel did come out in 2017. I still haven’t played it.
I remember Jetpack in the same way I remember Snood, which could be another entry on this list.
Another game was The Incredible Machine, where you construct Rube Goldberg machines to solve problems.
The first thing that came to mind when reading the thread title was Lunar, a series of musical RPGs. While some people have fondness for the Final Fantasies of that time (7-9), I have fondness for the Lunar series. There was an iPhone port of the first game, which I did play.
One of the things I remember about Lunar was the strategy guide, which had humor in it. That isn’t too unusual today with some of the guides posted online, but was new to me back then, especially for an official strategy guide.
I do want to add an honorable mention for MUDs. I remember playing the Wheel of Time MUD, where I was a Trolloc who wandered into the White Tower (unintentionally) and got killed.
That title reminded me of
Fun side-scrolling game, akin to Chopper Command but with WWI biplanes.
I definitely remember “Jetpac”, (or perhaps a similar game?) for some reason… There were emeralds or some other crystals, among other things.
So, there was this two-player turn-based strategy game, hex grid, (sci-fi?), pretty sure it was Commodore, 64 or 128 but not Amiga, but I do not remember which one! Oh, well.
One excellent strategy game I do remember is the Command Ops Battles from the Bulge/Highway to the Reich. Microsoft Windows.
My brother and I loved Montezuma’s Revenge on DOS. We had it figured out so well, we could beat it over and over.
It most likely must have been C64. I had a C128, and I can’t remember having a single game specifically made for it in C128 mode. Some were adapted for 80-column mode, and some may have had some extra features. All the development was focused on the C64. Off the top of my head, I know Elite had a 128 version (which I’ve never seen) and Douglas Adam’s Bureaucracy was 128-only.