gaming temporarily makes me forget that living is an meaningless existence of suffering before you die and everything becomes a black void where you and everything you know and love just stops.... forever.

Playing the table-top DnD games is probably what got me interested in gaming (though I didn't think it at the time) and likely what hooked me on the RPG genre. Reading fantasy books back then further influenced my interest gaming, surprisingly marvel comics if you can believe it. But I suppose even before those, there was Atari 2600 and Commodore 64. But my memories are a bit fuzzy on those last two. The big boss battles no one can win against, age and time.

But my first real taste of gaming came of course was going to the public arcades. I mean those things were a huge deal back in the 80s. The amount of quarters that disappeared into those tiny little slots was unthinkable. So much fun and so much frustration. And who can forget all the times the quarters that got stuck and you had to call the attendant. Of course, once in a while they tinkered a bit on the inside to give you a few extra credits ::wink wink::

Pac-man, Galaga, Gauntlet, Dig Dug, Dragon's Lair (don't get me started on this one), Golden Axe, a few racing games that you got to sit in or ride on (motorcycle types) ... OMG, there were so many I'm drawing a blank trying to recall any more. But let's just say a lot of my afterschool hours were spent in those places. Main feature of some of those places were go-cart racing of miniature golf, which were a ton of fun too of course. They were so addictive and so intoxicating.

When home consoles came out eventually and the arcade time diminished. But they will always hold a special place in my heart. I'll be honest, before this contest, I actually forgot about them. I guess time really moves on. So, I do owe a thanks to GOG for taking me down memory lane, even if only for a brief moment.

For some reason the movie Goonies popped into my head as I'm trying to type this all out. But I'm going to stop here though. Those were nostalgic times, but thinking about them now while joyful, also causes a bit of melancholy. Maybe I'll add a bit more if I can. The 80s were a special time for me and too many strong memories lay in that era and not just when it comes to gaming.
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Jumping Jack on the Spectrum 48k.

In the beginning, there was a certain smugness in the character while preparing to traverse all those lines, only to be stopped again and again by either a snake, a bus or the ceiling and falling haphazardly, most of the times onto the ground floor!

Pure magic.

Hard to remember exactly when but it had to be somewhere around when me and three more friends played Serious Sam split screen on the same computer. 4 us kids cramped up together on one keyboard and mouse. Must have been a sight to behold.

It started with Doom, 1993. Back then it was something absolutely mind-blowing, the kid me was so fascinated with an alternate reality full of wonders (and horrors), secrets to discover and dangers to overcome I never lost interest.

My uncle bought me an NES when I was 2, much to my parents' dismay. Started gaming early and never looked back

my love for gaming started around 1994 when I played Super Mario World on the SNES. It was actually for my sister but I ended up playing more than her regardless haha and ever since then I've been a gamer :D

i can only recall as maybe 2 or 3 years old and my sis got playstation 1 for her birthday. Funnily enough i used the console more than her as i played crash bandicoot 2 or 3, tekken 3 and i believe space jam licened video game lol. so my gaming passion has begun and so eager to ask if there are video games nearby to play when going to a house.

It started with ancient non CPU racing games, a cute circus game called Clowns, loading cassette based games on TR(a)S(h) 80 model III computers, and getting my first computer, a Commodore 64 with Cassette player and Forbidden Forest by Cosmi. It had gore way before Mortal Kombat.

Started with six year Commodore 64 - 1986
then around 1991 - amiga 500
after that 1995 i got 5x86 amd 133 Mhz
on 2000 i got k6-2 266 MHz vith voodoo graphic card - played quake 2 all day

my favorite games is still HOMM 3

got 2500+ barton after that with Gforce 4ti

after that i got AMD 7750+ dual core with ati 1950 pro

then i get Phenom II 945 with 4890 ati and was happy long time

after that and still i got AMD 8350 with r9 285 graphic card 32gb memory put water culler 2x140 and still rock lots of game

I play Dragon Age, Kings Bounty, HOMM 3 and HOMM 5, WOT and CIV 5 and CIV 6, with little of endless legend, lots XCOM 1 and XCOM 2
I don`t plan to change for now anything, maybe brother give me rx 580 graphic but that is it

It was about 1985-86 in a local playroom of a small settlement not so far from the capital... I was amazed by a space war themed horizontal scrolling shooter game which was embedded in a cocktail table. In the meantime, my bike was stolen from the front of the game room... My parents banned me from visiting the room from then on, but my love for gaming did not pass because of it.

The first video game I actually bought was Prince of Persia 1989, for my first real PC, a Tandy 1000 I think it was. It was however shareware Doom 1993, shareware Quake 1996, and Tomb Raider 1996 that made gaming a real hobby for me. I wanted the full versions of Doom and Quake but I refused to use a 900 number to get the codes. 900 numbers were pure, milk the customer by the nanosecond scams, LOL. Eventually, I managed to find full versions of both in the bargain bins. I still have the original shareware versions.

My love of gaming began when I was around 6. My neighbors and friends down the block both had NES with Metroid, Castlevania 2 respectively. My family had a 386 computer with Asteroids and Captain Comic. My father's friend from work would often purchase games for his computer then give us the disks, which is how we got Star Control and Star Trek 25th Anniversary. Years later I had saved up my allowance and purchased a SNES shortly after they came out. I remember that my uncle would send me a new SNES game for Christmas every year for several years, specifically he gave me The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past one year which quickly became one of my favorite titles. On the computer side of things, the day I first played Master of Orion over at a friend's house, I knew I wanted a copy of this game for myself. It wasn't long after that I found and purchased a copy for myself. I remember that it was the first game my family owned on CD and was one of the driving forces that encouraged us to upgrade our PC. My dad and I would spend long nights together playing Master of Orion, suffering from "one more turn" addiction and to this day the original Master of Orion is still among my favorite titles.

Yeah, Joy! Happiness! Play before the void suck us in! :p

My memories a bit fuzzy on how things started as I couldn't have been much more than two years old, but I recall my old man having a ZX machine, most likely the Spectrum. There was this game on it called Nebulus (or Tower Toppler in the US) which I started playing around with. It was all downhill from there.