Generations and First Games

All discussions regarding Board, Card, and RPG Gaming, including industry discussion, that don't belong in one of the other gaming forums.

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baelthazar
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Generations and First Games

Post by baelthazar »

You know, it just sort of hit me that I have no clue what general age group the people around here are. Some, like TGB, I assume are like 90, while others, like Daehawk, might be 13 or 50. At any rate, age group has a lot to do with people's perspectives on video games and board games, so I thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast. So, my question is, what age group are you in, what real board game do you first remember getting into (and I don't mean monopoly or candy land, but actual, more serious board game) and what video game really drew you into the hobby?

I just turned 37, and that puts me in a interesting "was a kid the entire 80s" demographic that saw games and comics go from being "nerd stuff" (enjoyed only by lonely nerd boys) in the 90s to mainstream (and enjoyed by hot girls) in the 2000s.

The first board game I can remember really getting into was Shadowlord! (the exclamation point is important), a very odd sci-fi fantasy wargame thing from 1983 Parker Brothers. From a mechanics standpoint, the game was probably a mess (I remember some highly odd gameplay and way more dice rolling than it should have had), but I loved playing it constantly. My next game, albeit a lighter kids game, was Fireball Island (I still own this). From there we moved on to Dune (the Parker Brothers one, not the Avalon Hill one). By the time I was 11, I was hardcore and running HeroQuest: Advanced Quest games with my friends (mostly one friend). Not long after, Magic the Gathering devoured our souls.

My first video games were on the Apple IIe. I remember one, which the internet tells me was Think Fast! that captivated me. I also loved a fantasy game called The Missing Ring. But my bread and butter was The Adventure Construction Set by Stuart Smith (man, where is that guy now, I would love a remake of this type of engine) and the game he made using it, The Return of Heracles (a game I credit for my love of history and mythology). Of course, as I grew older I played all the big ones - Pirates, Civilization, etc., but I cut my teeth on the old days of the Apple IIe.

Anyone else want to share? Nostalgia is good for the soul.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by Holman »

I turn 48 this year.

By 1979 (when I was 10) I had been introduced to hex-and-counter wargames by watching my friend's older brother play Panzerblitz and Squad Leader. I got into Ogre/GEV soon thereafter, and I by 1981 I was playing AD&D. From there it was all TSR and GDW for a few years. It was definitely nerd stuff then.

Also around 1980 we bought a TRS-80, and shortly thereafter we upgraded to an Apple IIe. Epyx, Infocom, SSI, Origin--at the time it felt like a golden age.

In late high school and college I had fewer gaming friends, but in grad school I rediscovered the love. X-Com (1994) was the first computer game that kept me up all night. The rest is continuous history, and now I have kids of my own. We'll be starting a new D&D campaign next weekend.
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Generations and First Games

Post by RunningMn9 »

I don't normally pop in here, but the topic caught my eye.

I am early 40s, so came of age in the 80s. The first board game that I remember getting into with friends was stuff like Axis and Allies. At home though, my dad and I played a lot of old Avalon Hill games that he had (Gettysburg was a favorite, D-Day, 1776, Battle of the Bulge). My favorite though was an old board game from the 60s called Pro Quarterback. We spend hundreds of hours playing that.

My early computer days were on a C64, and the games that really hooked me were things like M.U.L.E., Empire, Airborne Ranger and the Microprose flight sims (F-15 Strike Eagle was a favorite).

I moved from the C64 to the PC world in high school when I got a Tandy 1000HX. That's when I discovered Gunship. :)

And of course the gold box AD&D games, with Pool of Radiance being a standout.
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Blackhawk
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by Blackhawk »

I'm 43. You'll find a lot of us here on OO fit into that age group.

Since I grew up in relative isolation, I never was never introduced to board games growing up. I played D&D a little in the early 80s, but didn't really get into tabletop games at all until the second half of high school. That was pen-and-paper RPGs and tabletop wargames (Warhammer, Battlesystem.)

It wasn't until I had kids myself that I introduced myself to board games, initially through the D&D Adventure titles (Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardolan, etc.) as a way to introduce my kids to RPGs.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by Daehawk »

I turned 47 last month actually. Other than some D&D I never played serious board games...just the straight line family stuff growing up. i was into video gaming too much. Started with my Atari 2600 around 1980 lol. Hasn't quit yet.
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baelthazar
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by baelthazar »

Blackhawk wrote:I'm 43. You'll find a lot of us here on OO fit into that age group.

Since I grew up in relative isolation, I never was never introduced to board games growing up. I played D&D a little in the early 80s, but didn't really get into tabletop games at all until the second half of high school. That was pen-and-paper RPGs and tabletop wargames (Warhammer, Battlesystem.)

It wasn't until I had kids myself that I introduced myself to board games, initially through the D&D Adventure titles (Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardolan, etc.) as a way to introduce my kids to RPGs.
This actually reminds me of my first D&D experience. You all, being around this same age, surely remember the "D&D is responsible for kids turning to satanism" stuff that went around in the late 80s and early 90s. Right around my sophomore years in high school, circa 1994-5, some guys invited me to play D&D. Some of the other guys I knew (one of which was a close friend) went to a church that was way out their in right field (one guy had, in elementary school, tried to convince me He-Man toys were infested with demons... remember, this was rural south-central Indiana). They had me all worried about the invite. So I asked my Dad, "Do you think D&D is evil and demonic?" Dad smiled and said, "The important question is if you think it is?" I said, "no, I think that is silly." And with that my father put that idiocy to rest.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by Holman »

Did someone say D&D was Satanic? This calls for Jack Chick!

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Blackhawk
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by Blackhawk »

baelthazar wrote: Right around my sophomore years in high school, circa 1994-5, some guys invited me to play D&D. Some of the other guys I knew (one of which was a close friend) went to a church that was way out their in right field (one guy had, in elementary school, tried to convince me He-Man toys were infested with demons... remember, this was rural south-central Indiana).
Oh, I get that. Through my last two years of high school ('90 through '92), I was playing D&D in my grandmother's dining room in west-central Indiana (Terre Haute.) The phrase 'wicked, evil and Satanic!" was heard more than a few times. I'd counter the argument by turning up the Gwar in my bedroom later that night. Yeah, I was kind of a dick back then.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by NickAragua »

I'm 35. Other than chess, which I learned to play around the age of six or seven, probably my first real "board game" was a brief trip through a dungeon in first or second edition D&D. This was sometime in the early 90s. I don't remember any details, but we fought some goblins, picked some locks and broke out a prisoner. Then my parents made me go home. Made quite an impression on me though, the only board games I'd played up until this point were stuff like Monopoly and Clue.

First video game was (again) some kind of chess on a "BK" computer. This was some kind of russian computer with data storage on a tape the size of a movie reel. Mid 1980s, I believe. There were five difficulty levels - I could easily beat 1 and 2, but 3 and beyond were too hard. Eventually though, I figured out a specific move combination that would result in the AI sacrificing his queen in the early game. I even remember the sequence. I start out white, the computer starts out black:

1. Pawn D2-D4 1. Pawn D7-D5
2. Knight B1-C3 2. Knight B8-C6
3. Bishop C1-F4 3. Don't remember, irrelevant, nothing that protects the C7 pawn
4. Knight C3-B5 4. Nothing that counters the threat to the C7 pawn
5. Knight B5-C7 (capture pawn, check) 5. Queen D8-C7 (capture knight)
6. Bishop F4-C7 (capture queen!) 6. Digital tears

Once my grandfather brought a computer back from the US (without a "math coprocessor", doh!). First american video games were "Kings Quest" (2 and 3), and some game called "Touch Typing", which was an entirely ascii game where bombs would drop from the sky and you'd press the correct letter to shoot a laser at the bomb. Then there was a bonus "speed typing round" where you got extra points. You lose health if you let a bomb come in (take too long to hit the right key) or if you hit a wrong key. The game would start out with just a few keys enabled and slowly progress to the whole keyboard. After exposing the whole keyboard, the bombs would just start coming in faster and faster, thus leading, in the future, to me having an incredibly high and accurate typing speed.

Kings Quest, from what I remember, was about dying repeatedly while trying to fight with the stupid Sierra text parser.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by Zarathud »

Mom was worried about D&D until she looked at the books. It was filled with big words and stretching our vocabularies, motivating us to do more math, tell stories and improve our penmanship. We even worked harder to save up money to buy something. She realized D&D was going to be a good influence. A friend went from low Cs to high Bs after playing -- which was proof for the other parents.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by Isgrimnur »

I'm 40. Standard boardgames as a kid, chess from Dad. C=64 as our first computer. Plenty of hours gaming on that. HS brought checking out wargames from the base library and trying to convince Dad to play them with me. Plenty of time spend with Axis and Allies with friends.

D&D came in at college. I brought the CCG bug back from my first year as well. Tried to get into EverQuest, infected my friends with that as well. Always wanted to be more into wargaming than I ever had the opportunity to be.

I've finally given up on RPGs, as I just don't have the mindset to put the work in regarding research and planning, plus the consistency of weekly game attendance.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by Lordnine »

I guess I’m the youngest at 30.

First real board game was Diplomacy in grade-school. We had an awesome teachers aide who encouraged everyone to play. We would meet twice a week after school for a couple hours and complete a few turns. We even made and distributed fake newspapers from our countries point of view complete with propaganda.

Later in college, I learned about Settlers of Catan which set me on my current board-game path.

I had a SNES as a kid but I would say I didn’t seriously become a gamer until I bought my first PC. This was in middle school and my first two games were Total Annihilation and Fallout 2.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

Age: one year younger than Blackhawk.

The first decent board game I recall really getting into was the Games Workshop version of Cosmic Encounter during the late-1980s. Gamebooks were also incredibly popular in the UK back then, and I owned a fairly extensive collection, primarily consisting of the Fighting Fantasy series, Lone Wolf, Freeway Warrior, and Way of the Tiger series (most of which are surprisingly still intact to this day, if somewhat worse for wear). My friends and I never really got into the tabletop RPGs, though we did collect and paint Warhammer / WH40K miniatures, and even sold a few for display at a hobby store.

I owned several different 'gaming' home computers throughout the eighties and early nineties, though I began with a good old-fashioned BBC Micro B (before moving on to the Commodore 64 and Amiga). Favourite games on the Beeb system were:
  1. Elite - Even with its wireframe-graphics, the original Beeb version was nothing short of incredible back in the day.
  2. Exile - A superb and suprisingly-complex space-cave arcade adventure that crammed an astonishng amount of freedom, exploration, and physics into a 32K game.
  3. The Sentinel - 10,000 procedurally-generated solid-filled 3D landscapes rendered on an 8-bit system remains a suitably impressive programming achievement (and I'll never forget the panicky-feeling tryng to avoid the sinister gaze of the Sentinel's drones would instill).
  4. Revs - Top notch realistic Formula 3 racing sim from Geoff Crammond.
  5. Twin Kingdom Valley - A mostly text-based adventure, though it did feature several in-game pictures that made it more appealing to me as a wee nipper (this was also the first text adventure I recall successfully completing).
  6. Citadel - An entertaining platform game with puzzle-solving elements, and one of the earliest games I can remember that incorporated synthesized speech and sound effects.
  7. Mr Ee! - A surprisingly accurate clone of Mr Do!, which saved me from pumping innumerable 10p coins into the arcade machine.
  8. Starship Command - A decent SF game, at least until Elite came along, notable for the fact you'd start off in a ship that resembled the Liberator from Blake's 7 (with the next ship you'd earn being highly-reminiscent of a certain vessel that boldly went where no man has gone before).
  9. Cylon Attack - A fun space-based shooter, with at least a few well-designed ships clearly inspired by the TV show.
  10. Chuckie Egg - Perhaps the most iconic 8-bit platform game of the early eighties, at least on the BBC Micro and ZX Spectrum.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by Smoove_B »

I am currently the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. It feels good.

Didn't play any board games of note as a kid. Started reading D&D books around 2nd grade but didn't actually play until 6th grade. Played mostly though high school (late 80s, early 90s) but also started to work board games into the mix then as well. Dark Tower (when it worked) Axis and Allies, and Cosmic Encounter are the ones I remember. Haven't played D&D (or any PnP RPGs) since I was 17 or so (a lifetime ago) and I'm not sure I could anymore. Well, I could play...don't think I could run a games. I returned to board games in the summer of 2010 and haven't looked back.

My parents are borderline Amish with technology and it's amazing I was ever able to convince them to buy me anything remotely related to a computer. I remember begging for an Atari 2600 but that was refused. I think in 1983 Santa gave me an Atari 5200 and I played the hell out of that for years. In '84 or '85 I had a cousin stay with us for the summer and he lived in our basement with his Apple IIe. Every day we were playing all kinds of ridiculous games and I can clearly remember sitting next to him and playing The Bards Tale and Wizardry for hours on end. When he left it was like torture to go back to a console.

Sometime around the end of 7th grade (1987) was when papers started to become regular assignments and that was the tipping point that finally had my dad relent and get me a Commodore 128D. I think I used that for a solid 3 years before finally upgrading to an Amiga 2000 during the middle of high school. I used that Amiga 2000 right through my first year of college and I remember quite a few people coming into the dorm room to play various games (though I used it mostly for Civilization) and write papers.

However, everything changed in 1994 when I played DOOM 2 on a Packard Bell PC. I immediately went out to get one and that's pretty much how I spent the summer of 1994, completely abandoning my Amiga and Commodore roots and joining the PC master race.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by AWS260 »

I'm 40.

Board games: When I was very young, my sister and I would sometimes play the Godzilla Game. I remember running away screaming and laughing every time Godzilla would pop out of the board. Later, I spent a fair amount time playing Risk, and then Axis and Allies, by myself. I also have vague memories of playing a copy of Dungeon , again by myself, that we picked up at a garage sale.

Pen-n-paper RPGs: I spent hours and hours reading manuals for the D&D basic set, AD&D first edition, Paranoia, and Rifts. I actually played in games a whopping three times: a Paranoia session run by my cousin at my grandparents' house, when I was maybe 9; a D&D session at GenCon/Origins 1988; and one Saturday of AD&D with a friend during high school.

Computer games: I've played computer games on and off for much of my life. The first game that I can remember spending hours with is 3-Demon. I also played a lot of the SSI Gold Box games, sometimes using a hex editor to cheat.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by LordMortis »

I've always loved board games. The first board game I really got in to was Stratego. Maybe 1st or 2nd grade. The board game I got geeky about was some sort of tunnel out of prison game a year or so later. Can't remember the name. The first geeky board game I got into was Dungeon probably in 4th grade which is also when I started playing Dungeon and Dragons.

But mostly I'm here to respond directly to baelthazar
I was hardcore and running HeroQuest: Advanced Quest games with my friends (mostly one friend). Not long after, Magic the Gathering devoured our souls.
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Also we did parlour games night as a family from as far back as I can remember. I gambled with grandma and learned cribbage and uno and yachtzee and oh shit. Family games night are some of the best memories of early childhood.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by Isgrimnur »

Mystery Mansion!

Image
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by Moat_Man »

Age: 45

I have two brothers, one 5 years older and one 2 years younger. We played a ton of games together when we were younger starting with Parker Brothers and Milton & Bradley board games, like Careers, Stratego, Life, etc. My older brother got into more advanced games and used me as a whipping post. The first one I remember was Tobruk. Yeah, pushing counters around on a hex board at 10 and getting my ass handed to me repeatedly was my idea of fun. Must get into cover! What were the Italian tanks called, rolling coffins? Where is that 5 pounder when you need it? Flank that damn panzer! You can't hit it straight on and do any damage. Good times.

We also played D&D starting with the small rule books into first edition. I used to sneak into my brother's room and read the modules. It was sometimes better than a fantasy book. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks anyone? White Plume Mountain? All good memories of lying on my bed reading and using my imagination. Hey, it was cold in Edmonton it the winter. You can only play so much road hockey before your feet freeze off. :)

After that I played board/roleplaying/computer games through high school, university, and now into my forties. There was a brief period where I stopped in my mid to late twenties but then I got married and settled down and started to play games again. I now play board games with the Moat kids and they love them too. I intend to play games with them whenever we get together for the rest of my natural life. I hope to hell they have a board games shelf in the old folks home and I still have my marbles so we can play games when they come and visit. Maybe they'll want to come more often because it will be "fun" rather than a chore to visit dad. Gotta plan ahead right?

This was long winded.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by YellowKing »

41 here.

As far back as I can remember, I've been a fan of board games. I remember one birthday my dad took me into the toy store and he told me "You can get any one thing you want." Out of the whole toy store, I chose the Game of LIFE. Why? Because even at that early age I loved cool components, and LIFE had the coolest components of any game out at the time. A spinning wheel, three dimensional board, little cars with peg people. I played the hell out of that game. I'd even play solo if my brother didn't want to play.

Not too much longer after that, I bought the aforementioned MYSTERY MANSION. Wow, this combined two of my favorite things - games and horror (sorta). While it wasn't strictly a haunted house, it felt like a game about a haunted house and I don't think I've ever been more excited to open a box. I played this one ALL the time.

Another one I have really fond memories of was Raise the Titanic from 1987. This was another one I bought based purely on the components. In the middle of the board was an actual model of the Titanic, weighed down with various metal treasures. As you went around the board and competed to salvage treasures from the ship, it would actually rise up a pole in the middle of the board. Really neat game that I wish I still owned.

Once I got into my teens, it was all about pencil and paper roleplaying. I played Dungeons & Dragons, Shadowrun, Vampire: The Masquerade, Call of Cthulhu, GURPS, the Star Wars RPG, and probably some others I can't remember now. Those kept me occupied all through high school.

In the meantime, I was still very much into video games. I owned an Atari 2600 and then an NES, and I also owned a PC. My very first PC game (that I owned myself) was LucasArts' fabulous LOOM.

My first foray into "adult" board game was fairly recently in my 30s, when I discovered Settlers of Cataan and Carcassonne. Those just opened the floodgates, and now I'm sitting on a pile of 30-40 adult games that I've collected over the years. I'd have more, but I have to limit myself in terms of space!
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by Madmarcus »

I'm 50. My into to gaming in all forms is tied into the fact that I have a twin brother.

Roleplaying - In 1977 (the year it first came out) we are at my grandparents house when we came across a Basic Edition D&D boxed set left there by my cousins. During our week there we memorized most of it and copied down monsters and spells so that we could play when we went home. By 1979 we had our own Basic Set, Blackmoor, Greyhawk, and the AD&D books. We played AD&D throughout high school. In college this turned into GURPS and Champions but tapered off in grad school. By 1990 I was out of roleplaying other then occasional online games. I've done a little with my sons but its generally been awkward because we want different things out of the games (I want to try new systems and more rules light, they would love to dive into Pathfinder).

Boardgames were mostly normal casual things until about the same time. The exception was that we did have a copy of The Stock Market game that was part of family game nights. Totally unrealistic but it could be spun to teach some real investing ideas (and my dad was into doing that). Right around 1976/77 my brother and I were given a copy of Kreigspiel (AH wargame) and started a wargaming hobby that lasted through college. Since we didn't have the money to buy new games we supplemented the SPI magazine games and few AH games we had by reverse engineering Kingmaker and Rail Barons from the info in articles from the General magazine. Until college the only wargaming I'd done with anyone other than my brother was playing Third Reich with a group of students during lunch in one teacher's room.

We had an Apple II clone but I didn't get into computer games until late in college when Gato, Ultima, Autoduel, and Moria took up my time on school computers.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by baelthazar »

Isgrimnur wrote:Mystery Mansion!

Image
Wow... that stirred a memory! I know we had this game, because I remember finding little treasure chests with cobwebs and trapdoors. But either I must have trashed the game when I was little or it belonged to someone else. We had a copy of Dragonhunt by Avalon Hill, but I am ashamed to admit that I was so obsessed with it as a young kid (5-10) that its pieces got strewn everywhere. I imagine, if you dug through my parents' basement, you would find the game, but it would take a lot to put it all back together!

OMG, LordMortis... the best thing about Heroquest! I was cracking up! The furniture!
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by Ralph-Wiggum »

I'm 37. I was definitely more into video games than board games as a kid. For my 6th birthday my teacher asked me what I wanted and I said a "disk drive" for my C-64. She had no idea what a "disk drive" was....

My first video game was probably a handheld game; I think it may have been this guy:

Image

Not too much later I got a handheld version of Pac-Man.

We got our C-64 perhaps a year later. I think our first game for it was Temple of Apshai:

Image

It was pretty baller.

We later got the aforementioned disk drive and a cousin sent us copies of 100+ games. It all took off from there.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by hentzau »

LordMortis wrote: The board game I got geeky about was some sort of tunnel out of prison game a year or so later. Can't remember the name.
Dungeon Dice. I had that one too.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by LordMortis »

hentzau wrote:
LordMortis wrote: The board game I got geeky about was some sort of tunnel out of prison game a year or so later. Can't remember the name.
Dungeon Dice. I had that one too.

:clap: I loved that game and I don't know why. I'd sit and play it by myself.
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by MonkeyFinger »

I'm turning 61 this year and have two younger brothers. We grew up playing boardgames so all of the standard ones from that era forward - Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, Life, you name it. My little brother likes to remind us about one in particular that was particularly memorable. Green Ghost, something you had to play in the dark and we had the perfect place for that - the hallway that went back to all of the bedrooms. Close all the doors and it was basically pitch dark. The board glowed in the dark and you ran through a graveyard sticking your hand into various graves along the way full of all kinds of icky things that were in fact totally harmless... rubber bands for "worms", things of that nature. A good time was had by all.

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I remember being totally enthralled when the electronic toy age arrived and there were games with "computerized" components... can't think of the one I recall most, some kind of tower in the middle of the board? I'll have to google around and see what I can find. Unless someone beats me to it.

Later, I got pulled into wargames with a bunch of local geeks that were looking for other folks to play with. My first purchase? Panzerblitz. Went totally crazy and have a collection spanning many years in the basement - SPI / S&T, Yaquinto, Victory Games, Avalon Hill, you name it, it's probably down there somewhere. I still dig out "Ambush!" and play it every once in a decade or so. 8-)
-mf
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Anonymous Bosch
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

MonkeyFinger wrote:I remember being totally enthralled when the electronic toy age arrived and there were games with "computerized" components... can't think of the one I recall most, some kind of tower in the middle of the board? I'll have to google around and see what I can find. Unless someone beats me to it.
That was MB's Dark Tower (which I also recall playing in the eighties).
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." — P. J. O'Rourke
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MonkeyFinger
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Re: Generations and First Games

Post by MonkeyFinger »

Anonymous Bosch wrote:
MonkeyFinger wrote:I remember being totally enthralled when the electronic toy age arrived and there were games with "computerized" components... can't think of the one I recall most, some kind of tower in the middle of the board? I'll have to google around and see what I can find. Unless someone beats me to it.
That was MB's Dark Tower (which I also recall playing in the eighties).
Yes! Thanks. I was thinking "Dark Tower" but thought it must have been something else since those are Stephen King novels. :wink:
-mf
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