any old games to suggest?

englebart

Hyperoids is an Asteroids clone with source available. Hopefully they fixed the bug where your ship color matches the background on level 15(?). It is hard to maneuver when you are invisible.

englebart

Breakout is another classic. One step above Pong.

Paul Sanders the other one

Defender was always my favourite. Played it way too much at college (and that really does date me!).

Paul Sanders. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal. Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.

Gaston Verelst

I had hours of fun with [Leisure Suit Larry - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leisure\_Suit\_Larry)

Check out my blog at http://msdev.pro/

Chris Nicolatos

Minesweeper, Lounge Suit Larry, Hero's Quest

Graham Coulby

Going to break the mould here. Can I suggest check out some old gameboy games… the graphics are simple and the programming is often also not too complex. I then recommend this playlist: [https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeEj4c2zF7PaFv5MPYhNAkBGrkx4iPGJo\](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeEj4c2zF7PaFv5MPYhNAkBGrkx4iPGJo) I’m not sponsored here, I did this playlist myself and made a couple of gameboy games. Since the graphics are simple you can be making games in a matter of hours. Yes it is C language, but the engine/libraries take fair of most of the heavy lifting.

Matt Bond

In the early 90's there were a bunch of text-based MORG's played on dial-up. There were also a lot of text-based stand-alone games. I played Moria (as in the Mines of Moria from Lord of the Rings). You were a capital "H". All the easy monsters were lower case and the hard ones were upper case. Add a few keyboard commands for attack, move, and portal to the town to haggle for goods. Very simple but very addictive.

Bond Keep all things as simple as possible, but no simpler. -said someone, somewhere

JohnDG52

If you can get by with text-based, try to find "The Colossal Cave" or one of the similar variants. You should be able to find the source code (basic), which you can dissect to see how it works.

cplock

Unreal Tournament GOTY often referred to as UT99. Newer version came with game editors and the current version of the Unreal Engine is downloadable. https://www.unrealengine.com/[^]

asurgant

Desert Bus.

Jeremy Falcon

Yes, and the new XYZ_OMG_123 token, that was copy/pasted by a 13 year old, will be the new official US Dollar standard.

Jeremy Falcon

decaffeinatedMonkey

Frogger is an old but simple game I played way back when there were places called arcade halls. Simple graphics and controls, teaches hit detection... And controlling your frustration levels.

Shawn Eary May2021

My biggest issue with this is that they still haven't completely worked out the legal issues with emulators. It's really hard to find real Amiga 500's and C64s these days and original copies of corresponding games like Neuromancer (Amiga - Think the Matrix Movie before it's time), WhizBall (C64 Version is Best) and Midwinter (Amiga). Sure, games like Myst, Sid Meier's Pirates, Kings Quest and some older games have been licensed for sale, but many older games will not run on new hardware and they haven't been legally ported yet because there isn't a "market". Microprose Falcon 4 is an example of an brilliantly efficient and well written game, but it runs like garbage on many version of Windows 10 because the DirectX9 emulation is so awful on Win 10. Falcon 4 runs way better on Steam Proton OS (Wine), but it's not 100% certain that GNU\Linux Wine is completely legal. Also, there are mild incompatibility issues running Falcon 4 under Wine instead of native Windows even if the frame rate in Wine is blazingly high and the frames are smooth.

Shmoken99

Read "Ready Player One" and list all the games mentioned there! Barring that: Zork Empire (1977) Rogue (1980)

Ed Kautz

Ha, where do you start? So many games, so little time. Here is a list of some games with differing styles. I'd suggest starting with games with limited styles/movements/features, and trying games with differing styles, so not to get overwhelmed trying to figure out too much and work up into more complex games. Also, search out and play some poorly developed games, learning what doesn't work, and why it doesn't work, can be helpful. And makes your mind work thinking how you would make it better. BASIC Programming - 1979 Atari 2600 cartridge Cartridge and Keypad Info Bouncing Babies - 1984 DOS (Left/Right movement, gravity, physics/bouncing) Pooyan - 1982 Konami (Up/Down movement, timing, gravity, velocity) Rush'n Attack - 1985 Konami, many platforms (Left/Right movement, jump/climb/shoot, timing) Leisure Suit Larry In The Land of The Lounge Lizards - 1987 DOS (Adult-themed game, User Inputs questions for responses) Heretic - 1994 Raven/ID Software DOS, modified DOOM engine (First-person, look up/down, inventory of items, spawning, random sounds) EarthBound - 1995 Ape/Nintendo (Role playing, 2D world with oblique projection, screen morphing, halu Battlefield 1942 - 2002 for PC (FPS, single or multi-player over network or internet, historical maps) 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die

rnbergren

Thank you for this.

To err is human to really elephant it up you need a computer

Philip Koreski

For DOS and windows: SkiFree, Mine Sweeper, Monuments of Mars, and Jill of the Jungle. Commodore 64: Grid runner, Legend of the Exploding Fist, Spindizzy, Impossible Mission, Jungle Hunt, Pitfall 2, Giana Sisters, and Gorf. Amiga: Star Control and Lemmings.

bcarson

Some of the first 3d space simulation games: Descent, Freespace

Juan Pablo Reyes Altamirano

Any of the Sierra games from the 90's. "King's Quest", "Space Quest" and heck "Quest for Glory". They have a mix of command line interpreting and point-and-click, but they all have graphics. You can find them all on Steam.

Member 12983019

If the goal is to teach programming concepts and have a fun time, then by all means look into "COREWAR Dewdney". Do a search on those + keyword. Read the Wikipedia article. I started my kids on a few games that I created (text based & boring) Then went to the 1984 original Dewdney version. I recommend starting kids on a version close to the original (a simpler assembler-like language and with fewer operands). The original version runs, and is over in an eye-blink. I made a version that ran under Power Basic and allowed a slowed down, blow-by-blow view of the progress of the battle. This helped the kids see where their programs strengths & weaknesses were.