History: DOS Games Continued

I recently posted Part 1 of my history with DOS Games and so I wanted to write about a few more games I enjoyed.

Reader Rabbit was a staple in my day.



Sometimes I wonder if I should attribute my love for reading to Reader Rabbit but it seems a little far fetched so let's just say, it was a fun game.

Staying in the educational games category, I also loved Word Rescue. There was something so satisfying about dumping a can of slime on a little monster and if I happened to die, the worm would come and fly be back so I could try again. It was a magical game that I couldn't get enough of.



Another such game was Number Munchers. I could spend hours on this game just munching away at numbers and trying to avoid the evil creatures who didn't want me to survive.



Then of course there were the standard games we played in school:

Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?



O'dell Down Under



Oregon Trail - which I played both at home and at school. This is one of those classic games - it doesn't get much better than this. Well, in terms of DOS games.



While I'm talking about childhood games, I really can't leave out Crystal Caves (which was really my sister's favorite game)



Cosmo's Cosmic Adventures



Sky Roads



And there you have it. The games that defined my childhood. Did these help me to become a computer programmer? I'm not sure. I know they helped me develop a deep love for computers. They set the foundation which I later built upon a deep passion for computer games.

More than that, they made me happy.

Yours,

History: DOS Games Edition

When I was a kid, I wasn't allowed to do much. My days consisted of studying, doing homework and practicing the piano and violin. I wasn't allowed to go over to my friends' houses during the week and on weekends, only in special cases (like a birthday). I wasn't allowed to watch TV except for Friday and Saturday nights starting at 8pm and then for one hour on Sunday.

This could be why most of my childhood contains memories of SNICK and I Love Lucy re-runs.

I'd get "5 minute breaks" in between practicing instruments - which of course I dragged out to 20+ minutes whenever possible. Here's what I would do during this time:

1) Play with barbies. My sister and I would come up with extravagant scenarios for our barbies, polly pockets and trolls.
2) Read. I loved reading back then and I love reading now.
3) Play computer games.

I'm going to focus on #3 for now. Computer games were a big part of my life back then. Sure, our computers might have looked like this:



But that doesn't mean there weren't awesome games for it! One of my favorite DOS games was Hugo's Horrific Adventures.



This game was one of those type to do what you want games. It was a step up from MUDding since it had graphics - and since I was born after MUDding really took off, this was all I knew. It was a great game though that could keep you entertained for hours since it was so hard to move on to the next part of the game. Well, at least it was hard for 7 year old me.

The ultimate game though was of course...Ski Free!



Who can forget skiing down a slope, skipping around trees and rocks, and flying over moguls (bumps from what I knew back then)? It was a wonderfully simple game.

One that you could never win of course. Because of this guy.



Ah, he was the bane of my 7 year old existence. I hated that bear (yeti apparently). He would always come out and eat me and there was no way I could avoid him. However, I tried in vain over and over again to get past him.

"One day," I told him. "One day, I will best you and you will not eat me, Bear!"

Well, something of that sort. I never did beat him.

Why, on a blog dedicated to females in programming do I spend time talking about my past - specifically about (awesome) computer games? Here's the reason: I believe my love for computers started with these games. I could spend hours on them and hence, hours on the computer. If these games didn't exist, I'm not sure what I would have done but I probably wouldn't have discovered the joys of a computer. Since this was back around 1993, I wasn't very aware of this emerging thing called the Internet - and was a bit young to spend any time on it anyway.

Besides, games are fun.

Yours,