Can't say much about proud, but here is THE single moment in all my gaming history (starting on the C-64), that I will never forget:
I was playing Silent Storm and the tutorial recommended opening doors with grenades, so I thought:
Let's try that. - I stuck the biggest grenade I had to that damn door and triggered it.
BOOM.
The door vanished in a cute little puff of smoke. So did half the floor of that sublevel, a lot of wall and a bit of the ceiling.
As I surveyed the carnage, feeling a little dumb already (of course, I should have known that an Anti-Tank grenade might be a bit much), Dani Kunstler, my squad medic, piped up in that chirpy voice of hers and asked:

Do you feel better about your mother now?

Big Kudos to the guys at Nival and especially Shaun Lyng, who wrote the lines.
Thank you for this weird and clunky and engaging gem of a game, which I still play sometimes, almost 17 years after it was released.

I can't pick between my two favorites, so I'll post them both. They might not be as monumental as other entries I have seen, but they were memorable for me and I'll remember them until I pass away :)

When playing Baldur's Gate II for the first time, I came upon a certain Lord Jierdan Firkraag pretty early in the game. I was level 10 I think, with BG2's starting level being 9 (if I'm not mistaken). There will be -major- sidequest spoilers ahead, so if you don't want that particular quest spoiled, please stop reading.
It turns out Firkraag is actually a red dragon (a pretty serious encounter in BG2), a highly intelligent, bulky, physically strong magic wielder. He blackmailed my party and the choice was either fight him right then or accept his terms and help him. As a lawful good Ppaladin, there was no way I was going to be blackmailed by (perceived) evil.
Keep in mind that, again, I was only level 10, and fighting a dragon presents a significant challenge. Anyways, I split up my party into roles, with my paladin (two-handed spec) and Minsc (berserking, of course) beating him up in close combat while 3 other party members spammed him with hold and stun spells, and the sixth getting a dedicated healer role. After several tries, a hold spell went through and, after it, a few more. The dragon was paralyzed, immobile and an easy target. I beat the living crap out of him and got the legendary greatsword Carsomyr for my paladin out of it, as well as a memorable moment. I ended up using the sword up until the very end of ToB.

The other one was when I replayed Dishonored last year for like the sixth time (it's probably my favorite game). I managed to beat it on the hardest difficulty without ever being seen or killing anyone and without upgrading any of my powers. Basically, I only used level 1 blink, and I did it all in 3 hours. I am aware there are people who can do much, much better, but this was unexpected as I wasn't trying to speedrun it at all, I was just having fun. Anyways, that put a smile on my face and I continue smiling whenever I remember it :)

Finishing first on all tracks in Grand Prix Circuit on a Commodore 64, using wooden digital wheel I made by myself :)

One of my proudest moments was in Medieval 2 Total War.

I was currently embroiled in a war with the Byzantine Empire that was taking its toll. As England, empire was being stretched thin as I was at war with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Taking the opportunity to tear down what was left while Turkey assaulted them, I had cornered what I thought was the last army in the area of the BE. I was wrong.

Two full, extra armies appeared from beyond the darkness of the fog of war, and so I was attacked. Luckily, my general was being reinforced by another, and both sides had very well equipped troops.

However, upon arriving on the battlefield, my general received a message that the reinforcements were delayed. It seemed the forests of the mountains had tangled the feet of my other army, and so it was a single army of about a thousand eight hundred soldiers versus nearly ten thousand.

The fight went on for a very long time, with the amount of bodies growing on the floor and the haze of combat rising from the ground. The enemy had routed briefly, but the damage had been done. While my single army and its general had done significant damage, taking out about three thousand men, they were only about two hundred left, and so they went to a hill to make a last stand.

All of a sudden I hear that the reinforcements had arrived, and my knights came charging out of the woods, slamming into the enemy infantry as they climbed the hill. The catapults meant for sieging the nearby castle were put to work hurling stones towards the archers and cavalry, and my own bowmen were quick to get into position to mow down their skirmishers.

Had they not intervened in time, I would have lost a very valuable general who later healed and became much tougher to kill on the field of battle.

Unfortunately, the damage had been done. I needed two armies to assault the fortified castle, so I had to retreat, leaving behind the fresh army in a hastily constructed fort to wall in the Byzantines until such a time that I could properly assault them.

The time came a year later. Happy to see each other, the two generals made for the castle, and with the new troops and siege equipment, the walls fell and the towers crumbled. Stray shots damaged the buildings within, but a building can be repaired.

After much fighting, the day was won and the castle was ours. The battle that prevented the assault prior had seen around five thousand casualties for the enemy and almost one thousand seven hundred for mine. This time, they were wiped out completely, and the narrow streets and artillery allowed us to destroy them before we lost many soldiers. The generals did not want a repeat of that event.

My proudest moment is also a nice belated Father's Day remembrance. My dad and I used to play Guild Wars together and so we would often help each other level up new characters. We were doing just that with my new Mesmer character on one of the main story missions with two random pickups. The randoms were about at my level whereas my dad was using one of his max level characters. Being that it was a fairly early mission we weren’t too concerned about the party makeup or our builds, figuring we’d just breeze through through it, no sweet. Spoilers: we didn’t.

We start the mission and, as expected, things were going pretty smoothly at first. Then we get to the part of the mission where there’s a huge group of enemies that you are supposed to avoid as you make your way to the objective. So of course the randoms go charging right in, figuring they’ll be fine with a max level backing them up. My dad wasn't too thrilled with this, since he wasn’t really setup for that kind of a fight, and because we were all pretty squishy. Predictably, the randoms died quickly and, without a healer or tank, my dad's Fire Elementalist got overwhelmed and eventually died. My Mesmer managed to escape and get out of agro but I had no way to revive any of the party and wasn't sure if I could complete the mission solo, since the last part involved defending against several waves of enemies. I decided give it a try and the rest of the group stuck around to cheered me on. Fortunately there were some NPCs that man some turrets during the last part of that mission, and I didn't even have to kill every enemy, just survived until a timer counted down. Still, the mission was balanced for a group of 4 players. So I knew that things were going to get intense.

I got to the final area alright and, as the enemy waves came in, I managed to take out key enemies and fade away before taking too much damage. Meanwhile the NPCs took the brunt of the damage for me and were able to deal with some of the enemies at first. But as the waves of enemies kept coming in the NPCs began to die off one by one. The attackers pushed further and further in until the last NPC died. The enemy's last attack wave started and, with no one left to back me up, I was on the verge of being overrun. My HP was dropping, fast, as there was nowhere to go and I couldn’t kill the enemies fast enough to make a dent in their numbers. As I was about to loose the last of my HP, the timer hit zero and the mission ended successfully.

The feeling of relief I felt when that ending cut scene started to play was palpable. The randoms in our group were stocked and I got a hardy “Good job” from my dad. I think the fact that my dad was proud of me in that moment is what really made it special to me, and why it’s one of my most cherished gaming memories. My dad passed away a couple of years later, so I’ll never be able to have another moment like this with him again. But this memory will be with me always, and so will he.

I was so proud whenever I've beaten my father in the "Rock, Paper, Scissors" game on ICQ. Even when I lost, I was glad I could dedicate my time to have fun with my dad. About a decade later, he played Team Fortress 2 with me, even though he didn't like the game. Other than that, I don't think I was ever proud about games.

When I lost my first game of Dwarf Fortress.

Because it was a long path to come here. I spend lot, lot of hours watching video tutorials (in english), even reading some, I put so many efforts to struggle with the UI (not being able to use a mouse for such a game, omg.... it complicates things so much), it was so strange to look at so many ASCii caracters too at first ! (but like someone said, "after a while you are like watching the matrice in Matrix" and it's true). And paying attention to everything... while still watching tutorials.... trying to take care of the dwarves and to not screw things. As much as possible.

And in the end... the experience was so much awesome ! I decided to try the game "barebones", simply jumping in it the way it is "right out of the box" to feel what the devs had in mind. It took efforts, but what a ride ! The game is absolutely awesome, one of the most memorable experience I had with a game. And I was so proud of the rise & fall of my colony, of the whole journey of it, and of my journey !

"Losing is fun" is a very interesting maxim :)

Small note : if you've always been curious but afraid to try DF, try the guides from DasTactic, it will helps a lot : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuyQhtwQHF4

Good luck to everyone !

My proudest gaming moment?

For this, I harken back to some of my earliest childhood memories. The year is 1983 – a time when my dad and I would often play video games together (and in my youth, I was blissfully unaware of the “crash” that was taking place in the video game industry). As I peruse a catalog of Intellivison games and reminisce, I recall with clarity over sixty games that we played together on that venerable console. Enthralled as I was with those magical little programs, they represented but a pale shadow of the world to which I was about to be introduced.

Enter the Commodore 64: arguably the US market’s first “home computer for the masses”, and my first taste of a most divine, digital delicacy. I was absolutely fascinated with that computer – the mysteries of its hardware, the cryptic commands typed into a blinking cursor, and a platform that supported a genre of game, previously unknown to me, which would absolutely take hold of my imagination: the CRPG. Of course, in my youthful innocence, I had no idea what a “CRPG” was. I knew only a name; a name that would set my imagination aflame: Telengard!

For those who do not know, Telengard is an early example of a randomized dungeon-crawler, with its roots in the classic DND mainframe game. Once I had experienced Telengard, it became my obsession, a game that I fervently needed to play. I couldn’t get enough of its vast labyrinth containing predatory creatures, glittering treasures, curious (and hazardous) objects, and that oh-so-frequent interloper, death. Death came for me frequently, in many guises, but I was undaunted. With every (not-so-mighty) character’s demise, my knowledge grew – and knowledge was my ultimate power. I became fixated with advancing my characters to at least level 6, where they gained the awesome ability to cast Lightning Bolt! This was my favorite spell, as it lit up the whole screen in a bright flash of white light – especially bright in the middle of the night. Which was my favorite time to play.

You see, I couldn’t possibly get enough of Telengard during the day. This was a single-player game, running on my dad’s computer, and he alone decided when it was time to boot it up (even worse, the version of Telegard he owned came on a cassette tape – a common storage medium at the time – and it took a mind-boggling 25 MINUTES to merely load the game into the Commodore’s 64K of RAM). After I learned the basics of the game, he and I would take turns playing, making as much progress as we could before we inevitably perished (like being unceremoniously murdered by demons who possess a nasty whip fetish). Naturally, there would be limits to my playtime, and I was left wanting more. But carefully, I watched, and quickly, I learned. And once all the other members of my family drifted off to sleep for the night, the Commodore 64 was conspicuously left unguarded in the living room. It called to me like a siren’s song to a sailor.

Quiet as a mouse, I slipped out of my bed, sneaking through darkened rooms. I managed to get everything set up using only the dim light of the monitor; prepared all the while to instantly power it off at even the slightest hint of noise coming from my parent’s bedroom. Grimly determined, I typed the arcane commands needed to load the game. Then, for nearly a half-hour, I waited anxiously, held in a state of suspended animation, agonizing over my fear of being caught, but unable to resist the desire to explore that virtual world. Finally, the title screen loaded into being, and Telengard was all mine! Though I had muted the game’s sound, in my mind I could still hear the foreboding tones of Telegard’s title screen music. That gloomy song, promising doom, shall forever be emblazoned into my memory. I played Telengard all through the night, not bothering to stop for such mundane things as food or rest. It was glorious.

But my biggest revelation? That came when I finally puzzled-out how to successfully SAVE & LOAD my characters from that blasted Commodore 1530 Datasette. Finally, I was in possession of the power of resurrection, like a demi-god cast down from dungeon-crawler heaven! Furthermore, it meant no more losing my hard-earned Ring of Regeneration +24, just because the sun was rising in the East. The coming of dawn that heralded the end of my clandestine adventures.

I cannot recall how many sleepless nights I spent delving into the bowels of that hellish dungeon. But how could I sleep, when the clarion call of adventure had taken hold of my mind? Even so, on those nights I stayed-up until daybreak playing Telengard, I still went to school the next day. I don’t remember suffering any ill effects from this behavior; unless you count wistful daydreaming of slaying monsters and snarfing vast piles of treasure. Ah, to be possessed again with the boundless energy of youth!

Fortunately, as far as I am aware, I was never discovered. I had been extremely careful to leave no trace of my midnight operations – everything I touched was put back precisely the way I had found it. It was necessary to observe perfect attention to every detail: the computer desk had a glass door that I wiped down for fingerprints. The C64 and its peripherals had leather covers that needed to be put back on, just so. Finally, even the dust covers themselves, and the surrounding desktop, had to be cleansed of any dusty residue, to mask any hint of disturbance. To understand this, you must realize it was a great transgression to touch my father’s things, and I did everything I could to avoid incurring his wrath. For my father’s anger was fearful to behold, and sadly, I had not yet learned how to cast a “Charm” spell in real life.

To this very day, I am still trying to figure out how to cast that damn spell!

Me and my brother were playing Bomberman on our NES when our mean cousin came to visit, so naturally we invited him to take a turn as the game was singleplayer. After an HOUR of him hogging the controller we had enough, every time he died he made an excuse and got another run as the guest, but this time he called EVERYONE to watch him play. And that was the moment I realised You can plant bombs with the second controller, and after two minutes of bombs following him everywhere he went, he had enough and said "It's glitchy, Your turn". Of course the glitch stopped and we played taking honest turns with him.

EU3 is one of my favourite strategy game and achievements had become popular during the development of one of the expansion packs so Paradox threw in a few. One of the more interesting ones was 'Poland can into space!' - get Poland to maximum tech level by the end of the game.

To give some context maximum tech level is often not achieved by any country. It's funded directly by your economy so it requires a rich country and stability. However, as not all income scales with country size only smaller countries can be rich enough. And small countries are vulnerable to larger ones.

It's an interesting challenge because it offers lots of possibilities.

You can try and maintain the balance of power in Europe by force, breaking up any large countries and keeping everyone to your size or smaller. There are no big fish in this pond to eat you.

You can use the various late/post-medieval dominion options such as dual monarchies, vassals and the title of holy roman emperor in order to become puppet master in chief. If anyone attacks you there'll be dozens of small states rushing to your aid.

The game is set in the era of colonisation, so you can conquer a nice slice of the Americas, give up your lands in Europe and make Havana the city of science and modernity.

But everyone's rushing for the new world. Let's fight a land war across central Asia and found Shangri-La. We won't get filthy rich off the coffee trade, but the locals are a lot easier to deal with than the might of the Spanish empire.


It resulted in lots of fun games over the years. Some almost there, some that were nowhere close. It was very satisfying when I ultimately managed it.

Poland, you are go for Launch.

beating senator "nano machines son" Anderson with only one medkit on my first playthrough

I'll try as much as I can to avoid spoilers, but still - proceed with caution!

My proudest gaming moment came relatively late in my life, more or less thirty years after I first laid my hands on a keyboard to enjoy the wonders of digital entertainment. It happened while I was playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. However, the reason for it being the proudest moment comes from a different gaming experience I immersed myself in entirely some time before that.

Long story short, I got sucked into the colorful, yet, at the same time, profoundly dark world of Life is Strange, where in the course of the gameplay I was forced to make many tough decisions. In the end I made toughest of them all - wanting to "do the right thing", I sacrificed a friend to save a community. "It's for the greater good", I kept telling myself at the time, but I felt devastated anyway. It took me weeks to recover from that feeling of desolation, which, as I have later learned, is a common experience among Life is Strange fans, known as PLSD (Post-Life-is-Strange-Depression - not yet recognized by the medical community as a proper condition, but trust me - it's real).

But then I started playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and immediately got just as immersed, sucked into the fictional world, which I already knew quite well from previous installments and the novels by Andrzej Sapkowski. At some point in the game, a sorceress told me (told Geralt, that is), that the fate of my daughter (Geralt's daughter; well, not really a daughter in biological sense, but close enough) is in my hands (his, obviously; but then again, at that point I was no longer able to make the distinction between myself and the protagonist, so whatever). I immediately saw it as a way of redeeming myself after that shameful incident with Chloe in Life is Strange. So I thought to myself: "I'll do it right this time! I'll be a good father to this precious little girl, a good friend". And then I did just that - tried my best to make her feel comfortable in times of great distress, make her feel cared for, instead of trying to save the world again.

And it paid out - in the end we got re-united. She was happy, I was happy. And I felt redeemed at last.

But what about the world, one might ask? What about "doing the right thing"?
Well, this was the right thing to do! Let the world freeze - Ciri deserves better. Just as Chloe did.

Life indeed is strange.

I am matter...
I am antimatter...
I can see your past...
I can see your future...
I consume time...
And I will consume you!

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars on the SNES. It's one of my top seven favourite games on that console, up there with Super Mario World, Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Killer Instinct and Zombies Ate My Neighbours. I have so many good memories with all of them, but nothing resonates quite as loud as my proudest moment as beating Culex for the first time.

Culex is SM RPG: LotSS' hidden-hardest boss of the game. He's skippable, completely optional, and an awful good time... meaning he's a tank/curb-stomp battle waiting to rain a galaxy of hurt on you if you are unprepared. I could go on and on talking about the bugger and his cohort of dreaded doom crystals, but I'd digress. Suffice it to say, the moment I finally beat Culex--after leveling up all my characters to 30, the max level they could achieve--for the first time, I was ecstatic. The moment was made sweeter because I shared it with my parents.

Back in the day, when I was but a boy, my folks and I used to play games together. We still do, but we tend a bit more towards board games nowadays. Back then, it was all Super Mario Kart, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior and Batman Forever for us. That alone entails a lot of proud moments. My dad and I beating the Big Riddler for the first time, my mom and I defeating Dr Tongue after 50+ levels of zombie madness... awesome times all around, but there was something special about Culex.

SM RPG: LotSS is great. A nice story, cute and hopeful. Beautiful artwork. Solid gameplay. Yoko Shimomura's soundtrack is just amazing (and my second favourite, only behind the masterpiece that is Yasuori Mitsuda's Chrono Trigger soundtrack). Perhaps it was the perfect storm of awesomeness that made it so memorable for me, and it certainly was also due to me being surrounded by my loving parents, despite it being a single-player game, but the moment everything came together and I finally succeeded after so many attempts, that was my proudest gaming moment.

I would later go on to have further satisfactions. In that same game, for example, when I defeated the final boss, Smithy. I even fashioned a business card with my title: Smithy Slayer, that I would use to "introduce" myself to my friends at school. Then, I would go on to reach 100 consecutive jumps with Mario and finish all the secrets of that game. I would also conquer other games, like getting all the 463 achievements that the latest version of Killer Instinct has, and enjoying all three games of The Witcher. Good times all around, and, yet, they are all built on the foundation that is one single moment that resonates through time, surrounded by the right people.

Whenever I complete an interesting single player game, I experience the passion that brings me joy and the relief of not having to worry anymore about the final threat(s). Here are some instances of my memorable moments:

1. An open world, non-linear game called Two Worlds 2 has a unique lock picking mechanic, crafting, realistic ranged and melee combat, and the possible augmentation of equipment with crystals. Horse riding is feasible early in the game and boat sailing is viable by buying the ship later on. The main character is able to walk on water by using the spell or the Waterwalking Potion. In my opinion, the game seems immersive despite being released on November 9th, 2010.

2. In Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty, there are the hidden areas that should be accessed if the person intends to rescue all 299 Mudokons (which are a human like creature). The final level is timed with just 2 minutes so the protagonist Abe should be quick.

3. The defeat of the boss Tiamat in the Darksiders Warmastered Edition game satisfied me because it is considered one of the most difficult antagonists of the game. My player had to throw the bomb growths at her and then ignite those with a torch.

In addition, (if the game is an RPG) I enjoy obtaining free and/or easy loot because "every little bit adds up" eventually.

1. In RuneScape, the drop parties appear to be awesome when the total amount of the drops is staggering and whenever there is at least 1 expensive item gathered.

2. Path of Exile has plenty of variations of equipment and/or gems that can be looted by certain enemies. There are also the containers that have a piece of gear inside.

3. A futuristic sci-fi game known as Warframe has a daily tribute feature that may give a specific number of a free resource, credits, or a booster which lasts for a certain amount of hours. Once a milestone has been reached (every 50th day of the daily tribute), it is possible to acquire a free weapon, mod, blueprint, cache, sigil, or something else.

It was when i defeated my older brother in Worms for the first time. You know, defeating your idol who's also a game master and a teacher to you for the first time is an unforgettable moment. It's still the best achivement that i've unlocked so far. :)