Video Games Pt. 1: The Adventure Game Years (1987-1999)

I've been playing computer games since I was physically able to sit up in a chair. That probably comes as no great surprise if you've ever interacted with me in any capacity.

My parents got me started on our old Apple IIe playing a Sesame Street coloring book game. Some of my very first memories are of not understanding why the (greyscale) pictures I printed out didn't look like the colorful 16-color pictures on the screen. Roughly 22 years later I still find myself occasionally asking that same question.

A few years after the Apple IIe became obsolete we upgraded to a system that could handle REAL graphics. Thus began my adventure game addiction...

Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist (1993), a comedic game about a pharmacist in the wild west, is the first game I remember trying to solve actual puzzles in. However, my 7-year-old intellect was no match for most of the not-child-themed puzzles and my mom ended up doing the bulk of the work toward beating the game. One perk of this game is the awesome sound effect that would chirp ever time you got a point: "Score!"

Next up was Pepper's Adventures in Time (1993). You play as Pepper, a tomboy who accidentally finds herself in Philadelphia in 1764. As a child, this girl was slightly easier to relate to than a 30-something male pharmacist. Although my higher-level thinking skills had not yet fully developed, I was able to solve the occasional puzzle in this game and not solely rely on my mom to beat the game for me. As a bonus, Sierra managed to cram a lot of actual history into the game and as a result, I know a lot more about Ben Franklin's gout than I probably would have otherwise.

Myst (1993), Obviously a classic and a benchmark game in terms of graphics and plot. I loved this game when it came out, despite not understanding any of the goals or or what I was doing or what was happening. But it was really pretty and had awesome music. And sometimes my actions caused other things to happen in the game, which was totally sweet. I don't remember beating it until years later, but I definitely logged a lot of hours wandering around this beautiful world and clicking on stuff.

The Castle of Dr. Brain (1991) and its sequel Island of Dr. Brain (1992) were "educational" games with enough of a plot to be thoroughly entertaining. A lot of rather advanced topics were covered in these games: programming robots, art history, genetics, astronomy, circuits, and a lot of other fields that seem difficult to sneak into a kid's computer game. The games had three difficulty levels, and if you beat each puzzle on all three levels, there was a "secret prize" waiting for you at the end. Spoiler alert: It's Dr. Brain's baby picture. "Dr. Brain's Baby Picture" ultimately became a metaphor in my household for anything we worked really hard for that turned out to be incredibly disappointing.

King's Quest V (1990) is (obviously) the fifth game in the classic series, and the first to boast click-to-move graphics and audio dialog. I don't really remember the plot of this game, but I do remember that the solution to one of the puzzles was to pour honey on the ground in the woods, then put diamonds on the honey in order to capture an elf. Thankfully we already had the internet at this point, and were able to cheat our way through that puzzle.You might be wondering why I started with King's Quest 5, when I've obviously played the whole series. Well, the first four games had primitive graphics, and I was already a snob by the time this one came out.

King's Quest VI (1993) is still one of my all-time favorites. You're Prince Alexander, a dude who ends up shipwrecked on some trippy, magical islands (presumably as a result of the King's Quest 5 finale, although I can't guarantee that). Your girlfriend is being held hostage in a tower on one of the islands and you have to figure out how to save her. This was the first game I solved completely by myself (and the help of some kindred spirits on the internet). The graphics were pretty solid, and the puzzles were really creative. You have to trick a series of gnomes into thinking you don't exist, outwit Death, navigate through catacombs while successfully avoiding a minotaur, escape from being sacrificed by druids.. this game had it all! Also my favorite soundclip from any game, heard if you drown in the River Styx.

Titanic: Adventure Out of Time is possibly one of the most underrated games of all time. For 1996 the graphics were top-notch. The game had two modes: 1) An adventure game where you have to go back in time and prevent the Titanic from sinking (pro-tip: you can't). 2) A non-game where you could simply wander around the ship and look at stuff on the Titanic. Evidently Cyberflix created a pretty accurate representation of the actual Titanic; after playing for a while, you really get to know your way around the ship, which is pretty freaking awesome when you think about it. This game is full of win, and probably would still hold up today.

Riven (1997) is the first sequel to Myst, and in my estimation, a better game. The plot, although still fairly incomprehensible, is slightly easier to navigate in terms of course of action. Like in King's Quest 6, you're stuck on a series of crazy islands with all kinds of weird technology. The graphics and music are gorgeous and the world is completely enveloping. If I had to live in a video game world, it would definitely be Riven's. The final series of puzzles was pretty much unsolvable unless you cheated, which of course I did, but still probably bragged at the time about how I didn't.

Shivers (1995). This game was way too effing scary for a 12-year-old girl. You're trapped in a museum full of haunted and paranormal shit from around the world, some of which has murdered the proprietor. There are also these "ixupi" demons that pop out of nowhere and kill you violently if you make a misstep. In retrospect, it was probably a pretty sweet game, but I remember getting seriously creeped out by it and not being able to sleep well while playing through it.






These games are a pretty good sampling of what shaped my early years of PC gaming. There were others scattered in there, but none that left a lasting impression like this bunch.

Up next, 2000-present: Entering the age of 3-D.

Night Terrors

Thanks to the subject of this post I am wide awake at 4:30AM. It's such a bizarre problem that I felt compelled to finally write about it, even though it's likely to make me seem like an insane person.

So what's a night terror? Like a bad nightmare, right?

Not even a little. Imagine waking up from sleep, completely aware of your surroundings and able to interact with your environment but having the sudden overwhelming sense of impending doom. Something terrible is about to happen. That "something" is a total variable; you're 95% lucid and have no idea which 5% is not real.

That nebulous 5% can manifest itself in any way imaginable. In a split second, the brain makes up sometimes incredibly elaborate backstories for what is about to "happen". If I could somehow channel the creativity of the night terror center of my brain, I'd probably be a highly successful author or clown or something.

Here are some of the ways my night terrors manifest themselves:

• (Most common) Giant spider in the corner. Can't actually see it, but I know it's there, lurking and ready to pounce if I move at all.
• (Second most common) Any red LED light in the room = camera. Someone's gone and installed cameras in my room, or outside the window and they're watching me. Creeps.
  
• (Third most common) I've somehow accidentally woken up in somebody else's room. Some stranger's room. Crap, I'd better get out before they realize I'm sleeping in here! So I get up and leave.
• Oh shit, the ceiling's about to collapse! Better throw myself on the ground so I don't get squashed!
• Uh oh, that bottle on my dresser is spraying out toxic fumes. I need to let everyone in the house know they need to leave so they don't breathe in the fumes!
• (Hearing someone talking in the other room) O.M.G. I've heard this conversation before... I'm trapped in some kind of repeating time loop... HELP!
• That's not a bar on the window, it's a rope... there's a SWAT team climbing outside the window, poised and ready to break in at any second!
• Someone's built a deadly Rube Goldberg machine that's triggered by any motion I make. If I move at all, it will set off a chain of events that will lead to my demise!
• Oh fuck, that sound outside is some kind of nuclear weapon about to land on the house! Not much I can do about that one...
  
• And myriad others, often too abstract to really understand once I've come-to.
  

The way that night terrors substantiate themselves (at least for me) seems to be completely unrelated to anything- not something that happened that day or what I was just dreaming about. My previously peacefully-sleeping brain just suddenly spazzes and says "JESUS CHRIST LIZ, WAKE UP AND SAVE YOURSELF FROM THIS THING". And I do. And after a few minutes, my normal logical self takes over and I feel really really stupid for not knowing that I was having a night terror. Especially if I manage to lock myself out of the room in the process.

But at the time it always seems so real, and even if I can actively tell myself I'm having a night terror, it's SO vivid that I end up convincing myself that this time it's real. I knew it. There is definitely a giant spider in the corner this time.

Other people's night terrors often involve "shadow people" or "demons" or sleep paralysis and frankly I am effing thrilled as hell that mine do not. That is way too intense. I'll gladly stick with my toxic-fume spewing bottle of hairspray, thank you.

Update: 10/04/10

Unfortunately, depending on what your brain has made up, there is the opportunity to seriously injure yourself or others near you. The worst I've done is bruise myself up by throwing myself on the floor to avoid the collapsing ceiling; however, recently, I experienced a night terror while having a migraine. My brain convinced me that this migraine was being caused by a foreign object in my head and I needed to get it out of there ASAP. Fortuitously, I just had moved my scissors away from my bed and to the other side of the room earlier that night. There's no telling how that might have ended had the scissors been easily accessible before this night terror faded.