Adventure / Point-and-Click / Narrative Games

I got to play Zork in 4th grade on the single C64 in the classroom. Was obsessed with that computer. I beat Zork with a couple classmates and help from the hints book. The teacher gave me a physical Zorkmid coin that came with the boxed game, I still have it somewhere. Zork got me so hooked on computers that it was all I wanted to do.

I had a hard home life, my dad was an abusive addict. I lived in fear of his seemingly random behavior, one day he would be overjoyed and another miserable about everything. The computer was predictable, if it didn't work right, it was because I did something wrong. The teacher saw how much that computer meant to me. He taught me what he knew about BASIC programming, he gave me the manual. I'd sit in my room and read it cover to cover, trying to understand everything without having a machine to try it on.

One day near the end of the year, the teacher pulled me aside and told me that the school was getting rid of some computers, and that I could have one. I think they were getting Apple II's, so he put aside a VIC-20 for me. I had to get my mom to drive me to school on a weekend and the teacher met us there. In hindsight, I don't think he had permission or anything.

Sorry for kind of getting off the topic

@SQHistorian Good ole Leisure Suit Larry.

Still remember "buying" a pirated copy on two white 5.25” inch floppies from a local computer *store* 😂

Full Throttle!

Does "Adventure", Atari, 1980 count?

It's funny to read comments bashing King's Quest 3, because freak show over here (me) got into adventure games because of KQ3.

Before my psychotic parents got rid of it for being occultic, and replaced it with Space Quest 1 (not a bad exchange, I must say) I loved KQ3. I never got far in it, but it was just this open world for me to explore. The fact that wizard guy could just poof in at any time just captivated my imagination and made it feel like someone other than my character was out in the world doing things. It made the world feel much bigger than it was and it captivated my sense of wonder.

The Secret of Monkey Island is the first one I can remember playing. I also remember watching my dad play Police Quest 3 as a kid.

King's Quest 4 was the first game I remember playing. I was 3 years old. On a meta-level, Adventure or Dungeons and Dragons.

Planet Fall by infocom. I worked backwards to Zork. The mystery was so enticing to me!

@SQHistorian Adventure for the 2600. Probably the worst port, but a compromise for the hardware.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when I was a bit older.

Technically Leisure Suit Larry was the first adventure game I played when I was 3, but I was just walking back and forth in front of the bar because I didn't know what a text parser was. I think the game that actually got me into the genre was Myst, as divisive as it may be. I loved playing it with my family and exploring that world.

Oregon Trail.

...

I'll show myself out.

Secret of Monkey Island on a Tandy 1000 SL

It must have been either a copy of Skipper & Skeeto 4 or Voodoo Kid that we had gotten with the old Compaq my mother bought through work. Later I played Pink Panther: Passport to Peril that we had borrowed from the library.

That said, I didn't become aware of Adventure as a genre until I was 13 and the adult at my after-school computer club put The Curse of Monkey Island on a projector and we all played it together. That was my gateway drug, as soon after I played around with a front-end for DOSBOX to play the first two Monkey Islands and Sam & Max at a LAN party.

Having missed out on the golden age of adventure games helped create the drive that is currently fuelling my preservation efforts at The Royal Danish Library.

kings quest 2

The first adventure game I bought and played was an Infocom interactive fiction ... I think it was Stationfall. Before I had briefly played Magnetic Scrolls' Fish! at someone else's computer. Fell in love with text adventures and started collecting them, I have a few of the Infocom folios as well (sadly not the Starcross saucer). The first graphic adventure I remember playing was King's Quest IV.

These games, along with later games like Monkey Island, had a huge influence on me, I learned programming to write adventure games myself but spent more time writing adventure game engines (both text and graphic ones) than actual games, and today I'm a software engineer (not in the game business).

Monkey Island 1

Leisure Suit Larry 1. Still remember that one like it was yesterday. Someday I even use that password in some way.

After that many more adventures with Larry followed. As well as all Police Quests. A couple of Kings Quest and a couple of Space Quests.

My sister and I used to play as much as we could from Purple Moon: Secret Paths in the Forest, Rockett's New School, and so on. And look at me, now I'm working towards getting the Rockett games supported in ScummVM, haha. So, if I had to pick one to answer the question, it'd be Rockett's Tricky Decision which got me into adventure games.

Putt-Putt and the various Disney Animated Storybooks were lots of fun, too, I have fond memories of those. (As you can see, I grew up in the era of 1990s CD-ROM edutainment)

But the game that made me realize the true potential of what you could do was Riven. I borrowed my friend's CD-ROM set when I was in 6th grade or something (a box of 3 or 4 discs, that's how big the game is) and I was like, holy crap, this is better and even more immersive than Myst. Riven is how I fell in love with the whole Myst universe.

Sam & Max: Hit the Road!

To this day, it's one of my favorite games of all time. I haven't played it in a while, so thank you for making me remember! I'm definitely going to go for a new playthrough when things settle down here.

I think the first point n' click adventure I played was Maniac Mansion (for the NES!) at a friend's house.

But really what got me into them was Monkey Island. I had an Amiga 500 and we got some games from a friend who had recently got a PC. among them were 4 (I think?) disks labelled "The Secret of Monkey Island", and - dammit Ron - I was immediately intrigued by The Secret.

Monkey 1 was one of very few games I bothered to actually come back to and eventually after many months complete by myself as a kid.

That's going back a ways... I think the first one for me was King's Quest 1, actually. "KILL SNAKE WITH SWORD" was far beyond what I could type in the amount of time I had to type it, but the idea of moving around a screen interacting with the world to solve problems was utterly intoxicating.

The second one was Leisure Suit Larry, which I probably should not have been allowed to play but I was the only one who knew that at the time. Perhaps fortunately I never got very far in it, but the boss key made me laugh hard enough to make it worth it.

It wasn't until somewhat later that I encountered the Space Quest series, which I really got into. I actually completed some of them!

The first adventure game I played was Lesuire Suite Larry, my bigger brothers had savegames in all the interesting parts and I didn't knew English so I accidentally deleted all the saves trying to load them, needles to say I was banned from the PC for a long time. The one that really hooked me on the genre though was The Curse of Monkey Island.

Hugo's House of Horrors

I remember getting surprisingly far for an 8yr old. I didn't know what a bung was at the time so that puzzle took a while though.

I think the game that got me hooked on the genre was Simon the Sorcerer on the Amiga 500. Still love that game.

I first got hooked on adventure games with King's Quest VI, and then went back and played one through five. I still fondly remember talking to that rotten tomato.

Aaah I remember this game! I think my cousin played it, but I was still too young. The first adventure game that really got me hooked was King's Quest 7. It had voice over in my language. Sadly, the game is not compatible with modern PCs anymore. And GoG only has the English voices. I would like to play it in German again, for the nostalgia.

Holy crap, you sent me down a rabbit hole and a trip down memory lane. I remembered the cover of the first CD game I ever played but couldnt come up with the name, so I just read through all Point n Click adventures wikipedia knows off, looking for a bright green background and a weird clown on top of it.

It was Toonstruck! Never finished it, but it was my first PnC, so I guess that counts.

The first game that got me sold on adventures was Deponia and generally all of the Daedalic games.

Like many on here, Zork was my first adventure game, and King's Quest 1 my first graphical adventure game. Interestingly, growing up I really only played the Infocom and Sierra games, the LucasArts games somehow completely escaped me unfortunately.

King Quest II in Atari ST

Those old Infocom games basically taught me how to type. All the Zorks, Hitchhikers, and there was a Lovecraftian one maybe called Lurking Horror.

I'm not entirely sure my first game counts as adventure, maybe more as a platform adventure, but for me it was back in probably around 1996 or 1997. I didn't have a computer at home, and during lunch break at school I joined the computer club. We had only two or three computers there that could have graphics and one of the games we could play was Prince of Persia. The second game I played there was Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.

For me, it was the original King's Quest. Like you, my dad was looking at a way to keep my brother and I busy.

The first one I played was Les Manley Search For The King. I was around 8 and we got it from a family friend who gave us a box full of floppies. I remember being amazed and thinking "you can do anything in this game".

I later discovered it was a sorta ripoff of Leisure Suit Larry, but in my opinion a better game.