The Forgotten Games. finally written down to remember.

It seems that over the decades I have played (or at least seen) more games than I can remember. Every now and then something will remind me of one of those games I've forgotten. I will have this fuzzy, half-formed memory that will bother me until I find it.

The worst of it is when I find a forgotten game, then forget it again after some time. It happened more than once. So, I am writing them down now: here are the games I have forgotten. They are not all good games, but they at least have some memorable parts that got etched in my brain.

Blinky's Scarry School (C64, 1990) #

spark memory: trying to beat it with a guide from a magazine.

Pool Champion (PC, 1995) #

spark memory: drunk uncle wants to play pool

For some reason this game was on my 166Mhz Pentium PC when I bought it - it's a pool simulator with a story. I vividly remember that you start at a house party, go downstairs to escape the noise and there is an old dude there, swinging a bottle of beer and talking to you. Not sure exactly what he says because I didn't know English very well then. I think he is your uncle. Oh, and also there's a pool table there too. So you play pool.

...and somehow this starts this whole story where you travel from place to place, bar to bar and play pool for money. I think the goal was to get to Las Vegas for some tournament. I remember being really into the "realistic" graphics and how big the game felt. I mostly enjoyed the graphics, and what I could understand from the plot, my dad was the one who really got into it.

Capsule (PC, 2014) #

spark memory: lonely space rover minimalism

I've stumbled upon this game randomly on steam one day, and I am yet to play it, but the art style really caught my attention. You are piloting a kind of space rover using a radar interface. It all feels very old tech, reminding me of space-age computers of late 60s up to early 80s. Sure, it's just a texture with few shaders and super low-rez pixel art, but this minimalist presentation really appeals to me. Will need to actually play it one of those days.

Help the Hero (Web/Flash) #

spark memory: diablo style inventory puzzler.

In this flash game you are a hireling for a "standard issue" tongue-in-cheek fantasy hero. The most memorable part of the game is definitely the core mechanic of organizing equipment into a grid (diablo style). The game takes this idea and turns it into a type of "timed" puzzle game, where you need to be quick about what and where you keep stuff. It also has a pretty cool, cartoony (and very flash-era) artstyle.

As it is a flash game, and flash is going away it might be a better idea to use something like Flashpoint or just grab the .swf file and run it locally.

Captain Blood, (C64, 1988) #

spark memory: you're a space skeleton - press a button, explode a planet.

Weird Dreams (PC, 1989) #

spark memory: surrealist side scrolling in your pajamas.

Rad Mobile (Arcade, 1991) #

spark memory: barriers made of stacked sprites.

Budokan (PC, 1989) #

spark memory: california games, but martial arts.

Heretic Kingdoms: Inquisition (PC, 2004) #

spark memory: rpg with bad controls where you give zombie a hand.

Sink or Swim (Amiga, 1993) #

spark memory: platformer where you save lemming-like passangers of a ship.

Trickstyle (PC, 1999) #

spark memory: hoverboard Tony Hawk.

Tribal Rage (PC, 1998) #

spark memory: post apocalyptic RTS with exploding pigs.

1213 (PC, early 2000s?) #

spark memory: Another World, but you're a patient with powers escaping a grey facility.

Fuel (PC, 2010s) #

spark memory: Lonely low-rez astronaut running out of fuel