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.

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.

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

Digger © 1983 Windmill Software

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digger_%28video_game%29

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".

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

Just finished playing through Zelda lttp on my miyoo mini+

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.

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:

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

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

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)

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!

Marble Madness (1984)

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.

Nethack (1987)

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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!

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.

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

Night Stalker (Intellivision)

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.