You, me and delta seem to have had nearly identical experiences -- it's amazing how die-hard communities sprang up among those early, simplistic games. Remember N game, maybe? To this day I have a couch to sleep on in every major city in Australia if I need it thanks to that little flash game. It's a game that introduced me to people who shaped my youth, my political views, my sense of humor, my taste in movies and music ... I mean it's impossible to understate the impact the early forums I joined when I was 13/14 had on me. I'm a big fan of that phenomenon, for all that the internet takes a lot of shit for corrupting our kids. All I found was a group of people my age and a bit older having intelligent and interesting conversations that we couldn't have elsewhere. I could list a hundred examples of ways those interactions made me a more mature person.Exhibit B is a browser based game I used to play the hell out of in my mid-teens, going from around 5k people playing to less than thirty over the course of a few years as console and mobile gaming picked up.
I had a similar experience with various Usenet newsgroups and irc channels. I wonder if much of the web moving towards being tied to your real-world identity will hamper that. I'm sure I wouldn't have have been as welcome as I was a lot of places if they new I was a 14 year old kid in Mayberry.
Same here. I spent half my youth on forums, in my case related to Rollercoaster Tycoon. The other half I played the game. I could put a lot of creativity in that game and the community. Besides, rollercoasters are f'ing awesome.I mean it's impossible to understate the impact the early forums I joined when I was 13/14 had on me.
WHAT?! veen. veen. My man! Also have you ever fucked with http://www.openttd.org/en/ - seems up your alley.
I'm interested in all of those things!!! veen, what's your steam ID? and flagamuffin if you're on that too.
Chris Sawyer's the man, aka The Assembly-Writing Superhero. OpenTTD is really cool, I got into it about a year or so ago but I'm absolutely terrible at it - I know how to build bus lines and rail lines but that's about it. Know a good tutorial that's better than the wiki? Also: SimCity 2000. Amazing.