For me, it was arcade games that were appealing. Few words and all action like Altered Beast.

But at home, the Kings Quest games felt like magic locked behind a wall of words. An uncle read some text and let me play his saved games. But I never knew what was happening until probably Quest for Glory had better graphics. Then I just got pissed off at how the player could play for days, only to have a dead end path lol

....early game developers trolling customers!

I didn't get a computer to play King's Quest on until I was in 4th grade, and I don't think I got my first Sierra adventure until 5th grade. My first was Gold Rush. Then King's Quest III was given to me, then KQ2, and I didn't get I or IV until a couple years later when they were on closeout in bargain bins.
I had the Apple IIGS versions of the games, except KQIII, which was a gift and it was the Apple IIe version (which was the worst one to have the IIe version because of lack of a clock. I'd have rather had the IIe version of I or II, but beggars can't be choosers).
By 4th grade I could read on my own just fine, and by 5th I was reading from the adult section (Tom Clancy) or at least the "young adult" section (Star Trek books, which today I would consider fanfics but were published books at the library). I'm trying to recall what grade I read Douglas Adams HHG2TG or Gibson's "Sprawl" series, although the latter was after I got Neuromancer as a present.

I just found this which advocates many games that should run on older systems:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9b5_k4Paoc

links to the games talked about:
https://mm8bdm.net/home
https://justinbohemier.wixsite.com/portfolio/game-design
https://r

what is r?

Been awhile since I have been in this thread. But, if anyone cares....

-NAEV
-Ashes 2063

Naev has a Windows and Linux version. In case you need portable, AppImage for linux seemed to work fine.

Ashes seems mostly aimed at Windows. Also, the last part of Ashes is slowly still being made. So you can play it at present, you wont have the entire game. Plus its in bug testing phase. Theres that too >_>

Something messing up my copy/paste from notepad. Now I have to compile it again but I just got some kind of stomach bug and have been throwing up or sleeping all day since 10 last night.