What's the oldest game anyone here has played in 2024?

Chess. It's over 1500 years old!

I guess the oldest would be Asteroids using emulation via MAME. If you're talking about original hardware I would say Pitfall on the Atari 2600.

Has no one here played Super Mario Bros? 1985… or donkey Kong? 1981. Pac-Man? 1980. Space invaders? 1978. So many classics, all playable today with MAME or even still working systems or perfect emulation!

DOOM, 1993. Finally went through and beat it. Also recently sat down and learned how to edit wads as well as picking up ACS for advanced map scripting. Still a great game.

Fallout 1997

Oldest game I've actually played this year would probably be a bit of Ultima IV: Quest for the Avatar, 1985.

Collassal Cave Adventure, 1976

I played countless hours of Cave Noire this year. It's a coffee break roguelite that released in 1991 on Gameboy.

I fuck around with old games a lot but there are not that many games I get really into these days. Cave Noire is similar to Desktop Dungeons where every attempt is a short puzzle so it fits pick up and play nature of Gameboy. Can't recommend it enough if you're into this kind of stuff.

Of the games I can think of, probably Super Mario Land.

This week it's been Megaman II (1988).

I feel like games before that era had a lot of coin-op focus. Not much content, but hard enough that you'll be pouring more credits into the machine. That said, I've been itching to play Alley Cat (1983), but I don't have a good setup for MS-DOS games at the moment. I'll have to see if my Miyoo mini is up for the task.

Recently got a cheap Gamecube and now I‘m playing through Windwaker and some Double Dash every now and then. It’s insane how good the games still look that support progressive mode through the digital port.

Does a remake of the first Wipeout count? It was technically made very recently, as the source code was leaked in 2022 and a couple of projects re-built the game based on that, but the original came out in 1995

If that doesn't count then it's Battle Engine Aquila from 2003

Missile Command is a 1980 shoot 'em up arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. and later licensed to Sega for Japanese and European releases.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Command

On the actual arcade machine as well, with the huge ball "mouse".

Felt challenging, but also how it would be kinda trivial with a mouse and keyboard.

Day of the Tentacle (1993). Admittedly, it was the remastered version from 2016 which has more modern controls, but the game is exactly the same as the old one.

It was fascinating to look at it again with more mature eyes: besides the fact that it feels a bit dated as a whole, it was funny to me to notice how much humanity loves time travel stories.

It's not that this game is doing anything different in that regard, it's just that I thought about how much media exists on the subject (and has been very successful).

Anyhow, although dated, the game is brilliant and wholesome and made me wonder which are the best (and recent) graphic adventure games

I know it's not the "official" game, but I've been playing some Ocarina of Time (1998) multi-world randomizers every now and then over the last couple years.

Commander Keen (1990) on Steam

Marble Madness (1984)

I went to a gamestop a few months ago to see if they had any games for my Gameboy Advance. The dude at the register said I might have better luck at the "retro game" store in the next town over. I nearly spit out my Crystal Pepsi at him.

That would be Ultima Online, released in 1997.

I can tolerate the graphics, but the controls are really something else. Played it for 3 hours and had the urge to play some more, but never did.

Probably the ancient pong machine my grandfather had.

Burger Time 1982

It was one of my first video games, we had it for the Atari 2600, and I have it on a RetroPi emulator. You are a chef and the stages are platforms with ladders between them similar to Donkey Kong. The platforms have hamburgers ingredients on them and you have to avoid the enemies and run over the ingredients to make them fall to the bottom. You have to build all of the burgers to win the stage.

I tend to not go that far back usually, mostly hovering around the mid 90's and 2000's with my retrogaming, but does it count if I've played some rounds of NES Tetris?

I'm currently reading a fantasy book from 1984 if that doesn't count.

megaman 3 from 1990

Tennis for Two (1958) on an online emulator

I have Batocera on my Rapbperry Pi and I occasionally like to play some N64 games. So roughly late 1990s. I also tested the Apple 2 emulator and played either Apple Panic or Lode Runner, I can't remember. That'd be early 80s but I just did 2 or 3 levels.

It has to be Dragon Warrior.

Asteroids.

Double Dragon II: The Revenge or Super Dodge Ball, both 1988.

Mother, NES, 1989

I was playing Falcon 3 on DOS. 1991

Besides that I played some Bosconian from the arcade, 1981 and 1943: Battle for Midway on the arcade, 1987

Don't know if it counts but, "Game of Life" (1970) on "The Powder Toy" (2008).

Pong

Was playing Rainbow Islands on the ST this week.

Oldest game I've played this year is Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005) Ps2 emulated on my phone and played with ds5 via bluetooth

I actually played a wee bit of 1983's Crystal Castles (Atari 2600 version) earlier this year when I was trying out emulators 🤣 I loved that game when I was a kid, I get a major nostalgia hit when I play it. I'm sure some of the other games I tested were older still, but that's the one I remember because I was born in that same year.

I remembered it being one of the first games I ever played. As I fumbled my way through those first few sessions, I could physically feel my neurons flowering and blooming and creaking to life like a bunch of microscopic mind-rhubarb. It was the beginning of a life-long love of gaming.

Played a few minutes of Altered Beast (1988) on an incredibly shitty Genesis emulator I f̶o̶u̶n̶d̶ rose from its grave in the closet last week.

There was a Star Wars text adventure game on the Apple II released in 1979 that I used to play. I've been searching for the code from that game for a long time I finally found it again just this month. Part way through my efforts to convert it to javascript I realized I hadn't bothered looking for an actual emulator for Applesoft Basic... Sure enough, they exist (jsbasic on github), so I now have that running on my server. Yay, good memories!

For 2024: 1994 with Final Fantasy 3(6j) back in Feb.

Currently 1997 with Final Fantasy Tactics since I heard the remaster rumor.

Seems like I've been on a FF kick.

I went to Sakura Con this year and they had a Quick & Crash arcade cabinet from 1999.

It's not the oldest game I've played this year, but it was definitely the most interesting!

https://www.arcade-museum.com/Videogame/quick-crash

Level 4 has a mug you shoot that appears to really explode

The effect is incredibly convincing!

Microsoft Solitaire. ;)

I've been dipping my toe into the mating game with minimal success. They really haven't done much to improve it since I last played.

I just played Mancala the other day which may be up to 8,000 years old.

Super Mario Bros. 3 from 1988 for the NES.

I've played wolf 3d and doom 1 recently

hm, throughout my life the ones that come to mind are:

• pitfall (82)
• number munchers (86)
• word munchers (85)
• oregon trail (85 version)
• a-maze-ing (81)

Hmm... in my case the oldest game I've been playing recently is a fan translation of "Metal Max Returns" a 1995 SNES remake of a 1991 Famicom game.

frogger (1981) arcade machine at the local barcade, i think. sadly the place went out of business a little while back.

I went through Gunsmoke on NES, from 1985.

I was just playing the original Zork on Frotz.
So I’m pretty sure I win :-)

Just finished playing through Zelda lttp on my miyoo mini+

I still play Treasure of Tarmin (Intellivision, 1983) on my phone from time to time. I don't think the core gameplay loop would be entirely out of place in a small roguelite game today.

My gaming extends decades ago, with an Atari 2600 and the arcade era of the early 80s. Returned to gaming a few years ago and I'm playing Oregon Trail for the first time. Oh, and it's on my Steam deck.

Either Outlaw or Superman or the Atari 2600. Both came out in 1978, but I'm not sure which was first.

Just went to a videogame museum, they had the original Asteroids on the Atari 2600, from 1980. My favourite though was the Star Wars Racer arcade machine, it was even paired up with another one for multiplayer!

Night Stalker (Intellivision)

Digger © 1983 Windmill Software

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digger_(video_game)

This is the game from my family's PC AT that I go back to regularly,. But for convenience I usually use the WinDig port:

Windig, the Windows 95 version of Digger Remastered (87K). This version is rather new. If you are having trouble with it, try the older version (95K).

https://www.digger.org/download.html

I just used web archive to check and it looks like the 87K version and its description as "rather new" has been there for 21 years now. It was built to target Windows 95 and is still working on Windows 11 so at this point i would say its "pretty stable".

I have an MSX from 1984 permanently setup on my desk. I use it regularly to play some old games. So about 1983-1984 games are the oldest I play often.

Had to look it up to check its dates as a kid they only sold rip-off NES machines here, but the oldest game, i enjoyed playing, I found by date was Dig Dug, 2D game where you dig tunnels to get to all the enemies and defeat them by what I can only describe as throwing a bicycle pump nozzle into their mouths and pumping it until the enemy pops like a balloon.

There is the usual like Super Mario Brothers, Contra and I recall playing something where I think Diddy Kong throws barrels and "mario" has to avoid it to save the tied up princess behind diddy can't recall the name

There is also Bomberman, Lode Runner, Double Dragon( specifically 2), Arkanoid, Ice climber (co-op) and a game I really enjoyed called Operation Wolf

Oldest original game is most probably Pac Man, but prefered the "3D"-like one which allowed pac man to jump in the maze which is newer.

Edit:

My bad, oldest game played in 2024, hmmm, Heroes of Might and Magic 1

This thread reminds me I need to get over to Funspot. They’ve got a great collection of classic arcade and pinball machines. Web site claimed 600 games, but some of that is newer stuff, or mechanical games like Skiball and Wack-a-mole, which aren’t video games. Probably 300 vintage units, though. Haven’t made a pilgrimage this calendar year, though, so it doesn’t count.

We took a couple of family trips to a Barcade this year during the all-ages hours. I definitely played Dig Dug and Ms. Pacman and Defender (Defender is annoying, BTW), and I probably snuck a round of Space Invaders and Asteroids in there somewhere.

I still play Super Mario 64 if various rom hacks count.

Pong. Which is argueably the first ever video game. It's a square, which represents a ball, because circles were too advanced for that time period, and its bounding between two rectantgles which defend the ball from getting past them. It's essentially ping pong, but I guess the hardware couldn't handle the ping, only the pong.

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs from 1993 on real arcade machine.

I think the oldest thing I've played is mostly just NES stuff. Some of those will have been ported arcade titles or whatever, otherwise it's plain ol' SMB1 (1985, I think). I still play SMB3 ('88) quite often.

Perhaps a more engaging question would be what's the earliest game you've played that still holds up today, to which I would answer Nethack from 1987. I guess you could say Rogue, but it was a bit too limited. Nethack still gets updates and I still go through periods where I spend a few days playing it.

https://www.nethack.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetHack

I start a playthrough of the Quest for Glory series at least once a year - always with the ill-fated goal of playing through the entire series in order with one character. This is because you can actually save your character and import it into the next game and the correct way to play a paladin requires playing the first two games just right. I've never played the final game because it came out much later than the first four...

Someday!

I've got a working Intellivision which was originally released in 1979. Mine was fresh off the factory floor in 84, I think that was the last year it was made.

I have the set of Infocom text adventure games. I think the earliest ones came out in about 1981 or 82. I still fire one up now and then for a nostalgia hit. I bought a few when they came out, but couldn't afford more.

You can play some of them online, in your browser. Of course there are thousands of text adventure games (a.k.a. interactive fiction) available for free. Definitely worth checking out! And look at Inform, a language and IDE for creating these games by using more or less standard English.

To protect against piracy, most of these games required physical objects that were included in the game box. They are known as feelies. There are plenty of places on the web where you can find all the feelings you need.

Nethack (1987)

Probably one of the machines at a nearby arcade. Pin-bot is mid-80s and I play that one a lot. There's a couple from closer to the 50s as well.

I've got Pong on my phone and one of my kids loves it.

Mine is kind of cheating. I'm playing the Pixel Remaster of Final Fantasy I currently. I only have my tablet on me at the moment so I'm also doing a lot of emulation. SNES, N64, and GBA are my sweet spots

Golvellius on the Sega Master System.

I've owned it since the 80s but back then couldn't get very far. The fact that it uses passcodes instead of saves didn't help. Last month I played with a mod which adds save support, on the MiSTer FPGA (which I have installed in a C64 shell), on a nice ~10inch OLED.

I got all the way to the final boss but... still haven't beat it.

This year? I've lost, best I've got was a very brief demo of my setup with an Apple II game (and I already forgot what it was, I was just showing of that I had every game from an Exodus set since they added Apple II). But I'm not gonna count it.

Actual play? I'm on a GameCube fix right now cause of achievements. Y'all are the real mvps in 2024.

I finished R-Type III (1993) and played a little bit of Castlevania 2 (1987)

I was playing Bubble Bobble on an NES emulator, so… 1988

Oldest game I’ve this year: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Astro_Warrior
on Steam Deck

I’m a bit bummed the question wasn’t about the oldest game I’ve ever played (as I misread it at first), but that would be:

Trying to finish pokemon emerald on my game boy micro. I mostly play at family gatherings

Played with various ROMs of popular late ‘70s and early ‘80s arcade games.

Oldest I have played during this year? Or oldest I have played up until this year?

Galaxy 5000 (1991). Not the oldest in this thread by far, but I've never heard anyone talk about it and it's actually a really decent racing game for its time.

Moon Patrol on the Atari 2600 (Emulated on my Steam Deck). I'm not giving away my age by posting this at all...

I played the similar game Stunt Driver on PC a lot growing up. Had a tweaked copy where all the stats were turned way up on one car. Good choice to play as an old game

The London Game, from 1972.

I played through Wario Land on GB emulator earlier this year. Probably that.

Amiga Stunt Car Racer remains the best racing game of all time for me. It even had linkup multiplayer (I think..)

Robotron on mame and yar's revenge on 2600.

I got my childhood game, crysis 3 up and running with wine, so I've been plying that again. I can't belive it looks so good and runs so well compared to all the other "modern" games out there.

This year? Probably whatever the oldest game in the Switch's NES library? I haven't played much this year. Of note is Star Fox. I specifically played the first one. Star Fox 2 is interesting. It never got released but is on the Switch NES player. It has some rogue like features you'd see in games today. It has an xcom vibe where there's like an overworld map layer.

R-Type, first release 1987

Definitely some earlier Sega titles. Teddy Boy, My Hero, Wonderboy. Easy to grab at to entertain my toddler for half an hour so they get switched on fairly regularly.

I played Beavis and Butthead in Virtual Stupidity, 1995 last time i streamed to nobody