I am realizing my life is not really marked by birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, or any of the normal milestone stuff people list. It is marked by video games.

Thanks for this thread, because it reminded me of one I cannot leave out.

There was a week I spent in a mental hospital with a major anxiety spiral. Pretty much everything felt unmanageable. The one thing I could handle was Pokémon FireRed on a Game Boy Advance.

That was it. That was my anchor.

It was actually written into my chart that I was allowed to plug my charger in at the nurses station while I slept so the GBA would be ready the next day. No arguments. No debates. Just accepted as necessary.

Not my oldest game, see my other replies for that, but it is probably the only one I have mentioned that might have saved my life.

Close, but mine was Gorf on the VIC-20, not the 2600. See my other reply for the longer story.

This thread is turning into a memory dump for me, so here is another one.

I go back farther than Warcraft 3. I still fire up Warcraft 2 on DOSBox now and then, usually when I have had a bit too much to drink and want something familiar.

When Warcraft 2 was new, I was a junior computer programmer for a very large corporation, top 25 in the world. I set up a LAN at home using token ring, which tells you roughly how old this story is.

My wife is not really a gamer, although after thirty seven years of marriage and putting up with this stuff, maybe she qualifies anyway. We would sit at our desks, hold our daughters on our laps, and battle each other in Warcraft 2.

The machines were 80286 boxes I built myself from parts. Thanks, CDW back when it still meant Computer Discount Warehouse.

So yeah, I guess I have been around for most of this history. Some people remember patches and balance updates. I remember toddlers, token ring, and orcs on beige hardware.

Joust brings back a very specific memory for me.

I was in early high school and happened to live in the town in Iowa that called itself the Video Game Capital of the World. There are enough documentaries out there that it is not exactly a secret. When I joined the Army at eighteen my nickname was Radar, which probably gives it away anyway.

I had a good friend from junior high computer club. He had a TRS-80 Color Computer. I was a Commodore guy. By high school we had mostly drifted apart. Then one day he called me up, yes phones did exist, and told me he was going to set a world record on Joust and asked if I wanted to come help support him.

Somehow I got permission from my parents. I spent the entire weekend at the arcade with him, mostly watching, bringing food, keeping track of things, and just being there. He set the record. I do not know how long it stood, but I know I was there when his name went up on the big board Monday morning.

I got an unexcused absence from school for it.

Still worth it.

That one hits close.

I started Minecraft because my kid talked me into it. I bought him the last Alpha version, then bought myself the first Beta so I could play with him. At the time it just felt like blocks and wandering around, but it stuck.

Now I play with my grandsons.

Last weekend was my oldest grandson’s eleventh birthday. Along with a Steam gift card and probably some Robux, all he really wanted was to spend the day playing Minecraft with his grandpa. So that is what we did.

Not my oldest game, but definitely the one I play most consistently. At least once a week.

Oldest game I still play is probably Taipan.

I first played it on an Apple IIe, but now it is just a web browser thing I poke at once in a while. It is basically spreadsheets and bad luck. You trade, pirates wreck you, the math never quite works out, and you lose anyway. I think that is why I still like it. No graphics to hide behind.

After that, Seven Cities of Gold, usually on a C64 emulator. That one still holds up more than it has any right to. You sail off thinking you are doing something heroic and slowly realize you are kind of a problem. The exploration feels lonely. The map still feels bigger than it actually is.

But the oldest one I keep coming back to is Gorf on the VIC-20.

I owned the cartridge. Bought it not long after it came out. I paid for the VIC-20 by walking beans and putting up hay all summer for a farmer when I was eleven or twelve. Hot, dusty work. Long days. I remember counting the cash and realizing I could actually afford a computer.

Gorf was loud, ugly, and mean. The voice mocked you constantly. The joystick barely survived. I loved it anyway. Sitting on the floor, TV buzzing, thinking this was the future and I had somehow managed to buy a piece of it.

Also, side note. I am trying pretty hard to become a professional writer. I write essays and stories over at tover153.substack.com. If anything there hits a nerve, feel free to subscribe.

So yeah. Taipan, Seven Cities, Gorf. Not because they are good by modern standards, but because they still feel like something.