retro PC gaming memories
Feb 15, 2018 1:03:27 GMT -5
Post by anayo on Feb 15, 2018 1:03:27 GMT -5
For some reason Chibby's post made me remember a few more PC games I played growing up.
Oregon Trail II
This game was captivating. It boils down to a resource management game, but it did a fantastic job of just using little more than menus and inventories to make me feel like I was on a real journey. The digitized graphics and voice acting seemed really impressive at the time. Sometimes the computer I played this on would inexplicably play everything at 4x speed, making everyone sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks. As a kid I thought that was hilarious.
Richard Scarry's Busy Town
When I was small there were these "Richard Scarry's Busy Town" picture books about a town inhabited by anthropomorphic animals. The main character was a cat and his best friend was an earthworm in a helicopter shaped like an apple (he's actually in this screenshot, upper right.) I don't know if children read these anymore today, but in the mid 90's there was an animated TV show and also this game, which was basically an interactive picture book. I seem to remember a level where you're helping a plumber arrange pipes in a house. You could also venture onto that ship visible in the upper left. The soundtrack was more catchy than it had any right to be. This jingle from the deli is still stuck in my brain after 20 years.
Logic Quest
My mom probably got this cause it looked educational or something. It amounted to Wolfenstein 3D without any guns or Nazis, you just had to solve puzzles in mazes. That's about as boring as it sounds, but what captivated me about Logic Quest was its map editor. Something about building my own mazes really ignited my interest. You could choose the wall textures from a preset list and set up lock and key puzzles for a friend to solve. Mostly, though, I was interested in designing my own virtual castle. But for some reason this game was very unstable on my computer. It would crash frequently and I kept losing my work, which sucked.
Broderbund Home Design Suite
I acknowledge this isn't actually a game. I also acknowledge I'm not entirely sure "Broderbund Home Designer Suite" was actually the name of this software. I spent about 30 minutes on google trying to get to the bottom of this, and there doesn't appear to be an abundance of videos and pictures of this kind of thing online. But I know in my heart of hearts I used to play something like this for hours on end as a kid. If it wasn't this exact title it was something very close.
This was architectural visualization software. It let you edit a blueprint in 2D, then enter into a 3D first person mode to visualize your creation. I'd meticulously design labyrinthine houses and explore them. I do remember the first person 3D mode had really crude polygon graphics with no texture maps, but there was a surprising variety of features to add to your virtual home, like furniture, sinks, picture frames, even a bowl of fruit on the coffee table and bushes and trees to go in the yard. I couldn't get enough of this as a kid. It was like legos, but they were big enough to build rooms I could fit in (at least through the view port of the computer monitor).
Oregon Trail II
This game was captivating. It boils down to a resource management game, but it did a fantastic job of just using little more than menus and inventories to make me feel like I was on a real journey. The digitized graphics and voice acting seemed really impressive at the time. Sometimes the computer I played this on would inexplicably play everything at 4x speed, making everyone sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks. As a kid I thought that was hilarious.
Richard Scarry's Busy Town
When I was small there were these "Richard Scarry's Busy Town" picture books about a town inhabited by anthropomorphic animals. The main character was a cat and his best friend was an earthworm in a helicopter shaped like an apple (he's actually in this screenshot, upper right.) I don't know if children read these anymore today, but in the mid 90's there was an animated TV show and also this game, which was basically an interactive picture book. I seem to remember a level where you're helping a plumber arrange pipes in a house. You could also venture onto that ship visible in the upper left. The soundtrack was more catchy than it had any right to be. This jingle from the deli is still stuck in my brain after 20 years.
Logic Quest
My mom probably got this cause it looked educational or something. It amounted to Wolfenstein 3D without any guns or Nazis, you just had to solve puzzles in mazes. That's about as boring as it sounds, but what captivated me about Logic Quest was its map editor. Something about building my own mazes really ignited my interest. You could choose the wall textures from a preset list and set up lock and key puzzles for a friend to solve. Mostly, though, I was interested in designing my own virtual castle. But for some reason this game was very unstable on my computer. It would crash frequently and I kept losing my work, which sucked.
Broderbund Home Design Suite
I acknowledge this isn't actually a game. I also acknowledge I'm not entirely sure "Broderbund Home Designer Suite" was actually the name of this software. I spent about 30 minutes on google trying to get to the bottom of this, and there doesn't appear to be an abundance of videos and pictures of this kind of thing online. But I know in my heart of hearts I used to play something like this for hours on end as a kid. If it wasn't this exact title it was something very close.
This was architectural visualization software. It let you edit a blueprint in 2D, then enter into a 3D first person mode to visualize your creation. I'd meticulously design labyrinthine houses and explore them. I do remember the first person 3D mode had really crude polygon graphics with no texture maps, but there was a surprising variety of features to add to your virtual home, like furniture, sinks, picture frames, even a bowl of fruit on the coffee table and bushes and trees to go in the yard. I couldn't get enough of this as a kid. It was like legos, but they were big enough to build rooms I could fit in (at least through the view port of the computer monitor).