How old were you when you made your first game?

[Clord]

I'm not sure but I know at least that I was less than ten years old when I began to learn programming.


One of my early game projects was ASCII based dungeon crawler made with MSX Turbo-R.

 

[Galenmereth]

My first complete game was the IGMC version of The Vendor; while I've made a lot of functional prototypes prior to this (the earliest at age 16), this was the only game with a start, beginning, and credits, that worked. I was 28 years old when I completed that.

 

[The Art of Gaming]

I made my first video game in middle school. Too bad it had a game breaking bugabout 3/4 through the game .

 

[Andar]

My first programmed game was in basic on a Tandy Color Computer with a friend, when I was about 13 or 14 or so - hard to remember as that was about thirty years ago...

 

[_Shadow_]

I made my first video game in middle school. Too bad it had a game breaking bugabout 3/4 through the game .

Still it was your FIRST game!

My first programmed game was in basic on a Tandy Color Computer with a friend, when I was about 13 or 14 or so - hard to remember as that was about thirty years ago...

Wow, Tandy... was it an 8088?

 

[Andar]

Wow, Tandy... was it an 8088?

No, PCs didn't even exist outside very special big companies at that time. Ten years later my first PC was a 3x86.
The coloc computer from Tandy had a Motorola prozeccor if I remember correctly - or it was from a company that doesn't exist anymore.

 

[Non]

Well. I... actually feel a lot better now. Thanks, you guys.

But yeah, I suppose if we're not only talking about computer games, then my first game would be the boardgame I made for a class project in elementary school. Even if it was a complete ripoff off Candy Land.

It really is nice to hear such inspirational advice, though. I have the feeling I'll enjoy my time here.

 

[_Shadow_]

Oh wait!

Does IRL count?

In that case I was 9 years old, scetching labyrinths with traps on paper.

My best friend had to pass it then.

Imagine my surprise when I firstly saw RPG hack n slash games...

 

[TheoAllen]

Oh wait!

Does IRL count?

In that case I was 9 years old, scetching labyrinths with traps on paper.

My best friend had to pass it then.

Imagine my surprise when I firstly saw RPG hack n slash games...

If maze counts, then I was also the same age. I love to draw maze since very young, with the traps.

Even in exam, if I'm done with my exam, yet there's a spare time and a paper that supposed to be used to calculate, I use it to draw labirinth, lol, good old days

Or even in RM

Spoiler

 

[Espon]

I made paper games when I was a kid.  Do those count?  After playing FF4 for the first time, I was hooked on RPGs and tried to make my own.  I also made a Darkwing Duck board game.

First RPG Maker game was when I discovered the wonderful world of emulators and downloaded RPG Maker 2 for the SNES.  I never completed any games since it was really clunky to use, but it was still an accomplishment for me.

I didn't actually complete a game until RPG Maker XP came out, and it was a fairly long one.

 

[Makio-Kuta]

I think paper games totally count as game development! They help build the fundamentals. 

My first games were those maze like paper games too. I would play them with my little sister. But it was more dungeon crawler style. She wasn't allowed to see the entire map at the beginning. I would draw it as she explored, and enemies and traps and items and things would all be drawn in as she went. Erasing and redrawing her health bar was such a pain. (it was much easier when we switched to playing this sort of game in MSpaint) 

Of course, it meant that the game's RNG was rather human and things were often forgiving so she could make it to the end of the game - Deus ex Machina ho!

Keeping track of the affection ratings when we attempted a paper based Dating Sim was a real nightmare. There were so many pieces of paper floating around for each menu screen haha At least the Dungeon Crawlers were only one sheet.

Anyway, this was probably in the 7-9 age range like most everyone else here.

 

[_Shadow_]

But it was more dungeon crawler style. She wasn't allowed to see the entire map at the beginning. I would draw it as she explored, and enemies and traps and items and things would all be drawn in as she went. Erasing and redrawing her health bar was such a pain. (it was much easier when we switched to playing this sort of game in MSpaint) 

Wow! I was usually making small room mazes with one exit, thus I was turning the page.

I lost ALL of my game notebooks and after many years I coud have turned them into a game just cause.

Anyways.... it seems that labyrinth scetching an adventure was a common game during the age of 9.



Now excuse me, I have to punch some bears!

 

[bgillisp]

I think paper games totally count as game development! They help build the fundamentals. 

My first games were those maze like paper games too. I would play them with my little sister. But it was more dungeon crawler style. She wasn't allowed to see the entire map at the beginning. I would draw it as she explored, and enemies and traps and items and things would all be drawn in as she went. Erasing and redrawing her health bar was such a pain. (it was much easier when we switched to playing this sort of game in MSpaint) 

Of course, it meant that the game's RNG was rather human and things were often forgiving so she could make it to the end of the game - Deus ex Machina ho!

I did something like that when I was 11 or 12, the only difference was I lost at my own game. Stupid dice rolls...

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Using dice would have been smart xD  Usually we were in the back of the truck though and there wasn't enough space for rolling dice.

It's true though - what were we all doing that made us want to draw labyrinth style games at that time... though, mazes were pretty common in activity books. I guess we just thirsted for something cooler.

 

[bgillisp]

In my case, I was inspired by a Hardy Boys book, #98 to be exact. Its the one where they get caught in a RPG that becomes live and have to survive. After that, I decided to make my own RPG on paper, though I had little idea how one worked (except through that book), all I knew is it needed monsters, heroes and HP.

Honestly, it was really bad. I didn't even understand this concept called leveling up or healing spells. Yep, you read that right, an RPG with no leveling up and no healing spells (though I think I might have given them one healing potion at the start). No wonder I lost at my own game, bad die rolls or not!

Of course, it might have helped a little if I had been old enough to understand that you had a 1/6 chance to roll a 1 on a six sided die too.

But, then I got my hands on Pool of Radiance (the original from 1988) and all of that changed.

 

[Makio-Kuta]

I -think- the first RPG game I played was Faery Tale Adventure - so I drew a lot of inspiration from that game. So I know our little dungeon crawlers had keys and locked doors. The exploration methods were probably derived from some other Comm64/Amiga games that are faded memories in my mind. Aaaaand probably Doom. I played a lot of Doom, so the maze always had secret doors and pretty sure a lot of the monsters were rather influenced by the aliens in Doom.

Until the little sister in question fell into Lion King Fever, then everything changed into Lions, Hyenas, and the Savanna and whatever else.

Ah man, paper RPGs are the best. o3o

I think the first time I spent any effort actually programming a game was on my TI-83plus in Highschool though. And that was just a simple text based thing that let you pick a character, randomized your stats, and then fight and level up. ((I know a friend of mine did something similar, and I recall him spending hours trying to figure out how to display a "slash" image when attacks happened using the graphing functions) TI-83 plus calculators were so awesome.

Wait, I might have made a really simple little point and click murder investigation game using Visual Basic before that... timeline hazy. (it was basically played by clicking the right evidence and people in the right order. I think there was something like 3 levels? I just remember drawing all the art for it.) oh, now I'm getting all nostalgic. </cease rambling>

 

[Randommerade]

I made my first board game when I was 14 years young! I was a freshman in (American) high school and it was for my English class, I was put into a group with 3 other people. We were reading The Odyssey by Homer, and we had to make a board game based off of it. It was called Oh My Zeus! and there were 4 players, 2 heroes and 2 villains. The goal of the game was to get to either Olympus (heroes) or the Underworld (villains) before the other team got to their goal. There were luck cards and everything and it was extremely extravagant for an English project LOL. So, needless to say, we got a high grade

I haven't finished my first video game yet, but I'm hoping to soon!

 

[Cannoli]

Like many others here, the first game I made was a board game for a school project. I think it was based around one fairytale or another, but this was all back in my early elementary years so I'm a little fuzzy.

My first video game (if you could call it that) was styled like an old-school adventure game (think Zork) because that was all I could do at the time. I think I made it in my first or second year of middle school. It wasn't very impressive at any rate, and I think it might've actually crashed my laptop at one point... Ha! Memories.

 

[Blinn]

This is my first game




^I've worked on close to 20 different projects beforehand but none of them are mine and none of them were finished.

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

27. I was 27.  Princess of Peril was the name.