That was your first computer game, was it? Do you remember your highest score?
The first computer game I played may have been a Blackjack program that I manually typed into a Commodore PET, copying it from a Creative Computing book of games written in BASIC. As I recall the program didn’t work at first, and that also became my first lesson in debugging.
Back in those days, you had to work for your leisure.
That sounds like Cosmic Ark. I only ever played it on Atari, though, maybe this one isn’t the same?
Okay, when I linked to that, there were screenshots, but clicking on my own link now, there are none. Should be some here, though. I hope. :smack:
flashback Wow thanks for bringing that memory back, I loved that game. 
Nope – mother ship fixed at the top of the screen, and this was a landing vehicle that dropped down, avoided meteors, firing retro thrusters to slow yourself, and landing on one of the pads at the bottom of the screen.
Little guy would run out for rescue, get in your ship, and then you had to navigate back up to the mother ship at the top. On the return trip, you could actually shoot at the meteors. You automatically moved up at a constant pace, but could speed up with the thrusters.
I think I’ve seen other incarnations of that idea (under different names) in later video game systems. This one was a pretty early version, then – on the TRS-80 Model III with just black and white screen and chunky graphics.
HAHAHA – I’d forgotten all about this one! I was just doing a web search to try to find out the names of some of those old TRS-80 games, and found this…
I had the program pictured in the graphic at the top of this page
Aha. It was “Meteor Mission”. Produced by “Big Five Software”.
The first game I remember playing is Super Mario Bros. on the NES. I have it on good authority, though, that I played Pong on a home console at age 2-3. In fact, until the console was locked up when not in use, my mother was awakened in the early hours of the morning by “blip. blip. blip…”
Mom just loves that story.
I went to an old hole-in-the-wall elementary Christian school.
I went on one of the school’s computers. I was pretty amazed at the stuff I saw.
And then, I got introduced to computer games.
(On Win 95, I believe), I played Prince of Persia. The principal had it removed from the school computers after he said that it was “too violent”.
Then they took my beloved Duke Nukem from them also. I was wondering why he didn’t say that game was too violent.
What a pity.
I played Pong at a movie theater around 1975 or so. I was about 7. A couple of years later, on a giant computer at the local college, I played a text-only Moon Landing game where you had to type in thruster commands and the text told you your distance to the surface and speed. In 1984 or so, I played my first PC game: “Tai-Pan,” on my friend’s IBM clone.
I also had a Coleco Electronic Quarterback handheld when I was 10 and an Entex handheld baseball game when I was about 11.
Adventure, some time in the late '70s.
I don’t know how old you are- could it have been ‘Maniac Mansion?’ 'Cause I loooooved that game.
Solved it, too.
My first was definitely either Pong at the neighbor’s house or Space Invaders at the Pizza Hut (in a tabletop, tres cool). I can’t remember which was actually first, but I’m leaning toward Pong.
I’d like ask the OP to define if text-only computer games like Star Trek and Crowther & Woods’ Adventure fit the concept of “video/computer game”. If we’re not requiring colored pixels, then I think these are probably the first or very close to the first computer games.
I recall that the MIT geeks from Levy’s Hackers had made some sort of LEM lander game and a LIFE simulation in the 60’s. Anybody play those?
Personally, I played Star Trek on the U of I/Circle system about 1975 or so (I recall “Computer Lib!” was just in print at the time). I wrote my own Star Trek for my high school’s time-shared HP 2000e mini around 1977ish.
In 1979 I (or, rather, my parents) got an Apple ][+, and I played Scott Adams’ Adventures and Space Invaders. All loaded from casette tape, which was quite reliable. 
XYZZY!
I see that Computer Lib! dates to 1974 so I was probably playing Star Trek shortly after. I definitely recall the book as having a “fresh” status at the time, and I was given a copy that I tried very hard to absorb (being 12-13 at the time).
I remember my primary school had a huge collection of old Apple IIe’s and assorted games…the only two I can remember playing are a space invaders rip-off called “Wavy Navy” (you see, instead of a spaceship shooting down aliens, you were a boat shooting planes) and that old Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy text game, which was legendary as no one at school could even get off the bloody planet.
Of course, those games were obsolete by 1993, when I would have been playing them - probably the first game I played when it was new was the original SimCity. Ahh, good times.
I’m pretty sure that my first video game was Pong.
The first console we had was an Atari and the first computer a IIC. Both were when I was really young, but I played on them all the time with my older brother. Still I can’t remember which games were on which one. The ones I remember liking the most were Choplifter and Lode Runner.
I was about three or four years old at the time, so I’m not sure exactly which Atari 2600 game I played first. Likely, it was Combat or some side-scrolling space shooter which I can’t remember the name of.
Choplifter! I loved that one. It was tough, though, especially when the jets started coming out to shoot you down.
On a side note, does anyone else remember how cool the box cover art was on computer games was in the 80’s, and then your excitement was squelched when you actually played the game and the graphics were a disappointing clump of pixels?
I can’t help noticing how things have progressed now so that the game often looks better than the cover art. 
I agree, a great game from that era. Incidentally Choplifter had a few funny quirks, at least in the Apple II version:
[ul]
[li]It was possible to put the game into an un-winnable and un-loseable state, by luring one or more of the hostages across the desert to the base.[/li]
Over most of the landscape the hostages will always run toward your helicopter. But once they get near the fence, they ignore you (except for stopping to wave) and will instead run to the base and enter it. When they enter the base in this way — instead of the normal way, emerging from your helicopter on the helipad after you’ve ferried them there — the “rescued” count at the top of the screen does not increment as it should. From that point on, the total number of hostages accounted for (rescued or dead) never reaches 64, and the game never ends — until you restart it from the keyboard of course.
[li]It was possible to fire a shot horizontally and then catch up with it and chase it all the way across the landscape. There was no advantage in doing this. It was just a fun diversion.[/li]
[li]Another fun diversion was to lure a floating mine into the ground. Not too bright, those mines.[/li]
[li]Flying backward, as low to the ground as possible, was one way to avoid getting shot down by the jets. Their missiles would never hit you. Of course sooner or later you had to stop and do some rescuing, at which point you’d be vulnerable again.[/li]
[li]My favorite way to end the game was to rescue 63 out of 64 hostages, keeping one in the helicopter. Then, go back left and find a floating mine. Lead it back rightward to the base. Hover over the helipad, stationary. Let the mine hit you. You fall and crash onto the helipad, on fire. But the last hostage emerges safe and sound from the wreckage, and runs into the base. You win with a perfect 64 score, and with dramatic flair. Fini.[/li][/ul]
Yes. This was especially true for abstract games like Breakout, where there were no humans or vehicles or cities, or anything else you could really convey with interesting art. I think the box for the Atari VCS version of Breakout showed an escaping convict and a police chase, despite the fact that the game offered no such action or characters.