I just joined, and wanted to introduce myself and a fun topic. I searched and couldn't find it in an earlier thread: What was your introduction to adventure gaming?

When I was about 12 (1989) my parents finally bought a PC. No one was allowed to touch it. Someone gave my parent's the secret code to start a word processor, and a disk: KING'S QUEST. Much to our delight, as kids, instead of saying "Good luck King Graham", the fairy witch (or whatever) said something similar and shocking Anyway, all we did was walk around. We had no instructions, and didn't know what else to do. We spent a pretty good amount of time just walking around and getting killed by things.

One day I was feeling adventurous, and had stopped in front of the castle doors. Just for the heck of it, I typed "Open Door", and Lo and Behold, it did! This, alongside beating Ninja Gaiden on the NES, is one my greatest gaming accomplishments. That pretty much hooked me on adventure games, and computers in general. I read the DOS manual next and was soon in charge of the computer. We learned to type other things, but it would take a hint guide to get through that game. I also went on to play a lot of Sierra's "Quest" titles. Heh, after learning a bit of basic I even wrote a very short text "quest" myself.

And on me really quickly. I'm an all around gamer. I switch from playing hard-core FPSs like Half-Life, to Professor Layton on the DS, to epic strategy in Medieval 2, to Sam and Max, to Puzzle Quest, to Culpa Innata, to racing on TrackMania, to Tunguska, to "open sandboxing" on Grand Theft Auto. If it's fun, I'll be there. I like to read a lot; my favorite authors are James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Wolfe, and William Faulkner. I love all music with good lyrics, including GlaDos's song. We do what we must, because we can. And, I work at the IRS, in what you could call quality assurance. The IRS's quality, not yours ;-)

Anyway, that's my story. What's yours? Are there many people here who started with something earlier than King's Quest, like Advent/Zork?

cl0vis

cl0vis

You can get some ideas Here in addition to others. We have many here that go way back.

Ana

Hi Clovis

I got introduced to a text adventure called Colossal Caves way back in 1979 (intial devopment was about 1972/74 thus pre dating Zork). This is the ggg grand-daddy of all adventure games, playing it themselves triggered Roberta and Ken Williams, of Sierra fame, to start producing their own games. The incredible King's Quest, Quest for Glory, and many others were the result. Google Colossal Caves and you can still download various versions of the original adventure and experience for yourself the fantastic world of text adventurs

Just want to say welcome to GameBoomers clOvis!

You will really enjoy this forum!!!

Hi cL0vis,
My first game was Doom-1,in fact I bought my first computer just to play it.After that it was Alone-in the Dark-1 where I had to type mem-something to play it,then came the 7th Guest.

to GameBoomers, cl0vis!

My first adventure was Pi-Mania, a text game with a few very blocky graphics, for the now prehistoric ZX-81 computer. This would have been around 1982. I remember that the Pi-Man objected to swearing - he would throw you unceremoniously from the game and back to the main screen with no further ado. Of the game itself, all I can remember is that there was a green door, a rubber duck, and a pork pie. I wasn't able to finish the game (got hopelessly stuck), and I don't think that I ever made it through that green door.

Hi cl0vis I seriously got into adventure gaming after playing Broken Sword 1 so I'm a little of a late comer! I've since played Gabriel Knight 1 which is a little older & have just tried a pure text AG to see what they were all about! That was fun, but I prefer something with some visuals.

Hi ya ClOvis and Welcome to GameBoomers. I don't think I've ever met anyone who admitted they worked for the IRS

I first played computer games on my very advanced Commodore 128--we were so impressed that in addition to text there was the occasional small picture. I played Adventure Island with my kids. Then as they got busier and I got busier, we stopped.

Then my kids played computer games but I was way too busy. Then we got a Sega--kids were in heaven but I was still too busy.

Then the kids all left home, and we got consoles so we could play with then online. I loved it and finally wasn't too busy.

Then I had an opportunity to spend a week with my sister. I tried to get her interested in console games but she got me interested in PC adventure games (she started with Zork way back when) and introduced me to this site. That was a few years ago and now my house overflows with games that I'm going to play "when I have time" as I have once again gotten "busy."

I love to play, I love to read, and I love all animals but Dogs top my list and Labs top the short list. I have 3 big dogs and in June will be keeping my daughters dogs, so I'll have 5 dogs.

Colossal Caves = Advent, right? If so, I'll pass on being eaten by a grue today ;-) Although I started with King's Quest I, have played many of the text adventure games.

I actually started playing games on the Atari 2600. Does Pitfall Harry count as an adventure game?? (The answer is no!)

Welcome to Gameboomers Clovis

Have fun

Love Maria

ClOvis, welcome to here. There are absolutely NO grues in Colossal Caves, an axe wielding dwarf yes, and places to fall into - yes, but grues NO. It probably played on Advent, but was originally written on an early Digital Corp PDP. Subsequently ported to most machines available back in the dim and distant past of the late 1970s anf early 1980s.

Hi Clovis,
I started with Riddle of the Sphnix, and reverted backward from there. The first computer I worked on had a room for it's self so really didn't want to play games, until came back from trip to Egypt with the Archaeology Institute in 2001, decided to use the computer for some fun and games, and have been playing ever since, frankly working backwords GK 1, GK 2, GK3, BS 1, BS 2, BS 3, and BS 4, Byzantine, and 1995 Mummy, of course the new ones get on the shelf, to play. I still work part time to pay for the toys. Books, Games, quilting materials ect.
Charllotte

Hi Everyone!
In the early/mid eighties my dad was "high tech" because he got an IBM computer. Somehow he bought the original Zork adventure game. At first we kids weren't allowed to touch the computer, but after awhile we snuck our way in.

I spent hours upon hours...hand drawn map drawings after hand drawn map drawings...being killed by a grue in the dark...being robbed by a stranger...trying like heck to get out of the maze...I spent SO MUCH time on this game! And I never did ever finish it.

Many years passed until I met my dh who also played the original Zork (on those giant sized floppys - 'member those?) and I knew we were a match LOL

Return to Zork was mindblowing to us at the time! Since then we've been playing the Myst series (stunning graphics), Scratches, Alone in the Dark, Scratches, Black Mirror, the Agatha Christie games, and the best of the best - the Dark Fall series as well as Barrow Hill and my favorite of favorites the Lost Crown!!