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Which Video Game was most influential on you as a child, and why? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by tiramichu@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I saw this Lemmy post, but a huge list of games with no discussion isn't very interesting! Let's talk about why the games that influenced us had such a big impact - how they affected us as people.

For me, it was the PC game Creatures. It's a life simulation game featuring cute little beings called 'Norns' which you raise and teach.

You can almost think of it like a much cuter predecessor to The Sims, but which claimed to actually "simulate" their brains.

As a thirteen-year-old it was the first game that made me want to go online and seek out more info. What I discovered was a community of similar-interest nerds hanging out on IRC chat, and it felt like for the first time in my life I had "found my people" - others who weren't just friends, but whom I really resonated with.

I learned web development (PHP at the time!) so I could make a site for the game, which became the foundation for my job in software engineering.

And through that group I also discovered the Furry community, which was a wild ride in itself.

So yeah, Creatures. Without that game, I think I'd have become quite a different person.

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[–] Nemo@midwest.social 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

ZZT!

This is the game that got Tim Sweeney the cash he needed to develop Jill of the Jungle and then go off of that success to bring Epic (Epic Megagames at the time) into the successful company it became. But I don't care about that because I never played Unreal or Fortnite.

ZZT came with its own editing software. Not just so you could place pieces around the board and make mazes or whatever, it contained a fairly robust scripting language you could use to make all sorts of things way beyond the scope of the original game the editor came with. Whole online communities grew up around creating and sharing these homemade games, first on BBSes and then on AoL fora and eventually on a dedicated website that's still around. Because the game/editor were distributed as shareware, there was almost no barrier to entry, and we were all just churning with ideas about how to break the engine and push the bounds of the software, of gameplay, and if narrative convention.

It was one of the most creative and community-focused times of my life, and fostered my lifelong passion for game design, something I still do as a hobby.

[–] tiramichu@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I'd never heard of that game or the associated editor, but it seems fascinating.

I just had a poke around on the site, and it gives me some very good and happy vibes of how websites used to be, and the cosy communities that they hosted where all the regulars knew each other by name. Or by handle rather, since nobody ever uses their real name on the Internet, right? ;) Good times.