I did a bit of thinking:

first actual adventure game was a text adventure on my Amstrad CPC464 called Heroes of Karn, c. 1987.

Thanks, Piero, I like that people keep posting in this thread, as it's easily my favourite topic, since we get to share in the memories together.

It also had some really nice still graphics which bumped the atmosphere up.

The flowers escaping the framing is a fantastic artistry technique to enhance the look and feeling of it being an overgrown ruined cottage. The technology limitations of the time period were a blessing in disguise, as it meant developers had to get more creative with imagery to find workarounds for those constraints.

Hi Legerdemancy, it's a nice thread to read through with so many shared gaming memories. Your experience with Kings Quest 2 in 1997 is a good example because in 1997 computer tech moved more slowly and people were more likely to still be using machines from 10+ years earlier, I think. For example, I didn't buy a copy of Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards (which I still have) until around 1998. They were still available for sensible prices back then!

Oh, the guy who did the nice graphics for Heroes of Karn is Terry Greer. He did a lot of 8-bit art back then. What made those images even nicer was that they didn't just appear on the screen; the computer processors had to build them up piece by piece so they were literally drawn in front of your eyes. It could be seen as a system limitation, like you say, but it was also kind of magical.

King's Quest, for the Apple PC Jr. It took so long to render the screen images that I could sit there and watch as the computer drew each element, one at a time.

So I will add also some memories to the history as well. My very first encounter with any video game happened at my cousin's ZX Spectrum where I had an opportunity to play Manic Miner. Later I got my first computer - it was Didaktik Gama, communist-era clone of ZX Spectrum. My very first own game which I have played was obviously first game wich was on audio casette - PSSST!

Next step was change hardware to my first PC - XT with monochrome monitor. First game I wanted to play on it was Stunts. Opening menu loaded fine and when you choose to run the game, the text "Fasten your seatblets!" appeared. Then graphic froze while sound kept playing normally. Clearly, my computer cimply couldnt handle it. So next game was in fact my first adventure game - Mixed-Up Mother Goose. At that time my english knowledge was on zero level, so the pictograms showing which item should be brought to each character were incredibly helpful.

Then a new machine arrived, at that time it was "a cannon that could shoot to the other side of the street", as my uncle said. It was 486 with color monitor. The first game on it was Prince of Persia. And it was a complete shock - from simple games on a monochrome monitor, suddenly there was a beautiful colorful platformer with stunning animation. Around that time I spent a lot of hours with Formula 1 from Accolade, I still remember the little ritual of inserting the floppy disk to start the game. Then came the turn of motorbikes from the same company, which even featured an elevation...

Another milestone was getting a sound card, which added a whole new dimension to the experiences. I don't know which game was the first one where the queaks of PC speaker were replaced by the pleasant sound of the Sound Blaster. I have two songs that particularly stuck with me with the beginning of proper sound - one of the first MP3s I ever owned was "Always Coca Cola" jingle, and the other was a video preview of the upcoming adventure game Ripper, accompanied by the song The Reaper recorded by the band Blue Öyster Cult. I loved it so much that I’ve had it as my phone ringtone ever since.

Back then, my english was still not great, so I preferred czech adventure games or adventures translated into czech language, most of them are unknown out of Czech (Tajemství Oslího ostrova, 7 dní a 7 nocí, Teenagent etc). First "top-tier" adventures translated to czech langauge were Bad Tucker in Double Trouble and Broken Sword, but by that time I was playing games also in english. I even remember trying to translate first Simon the Sorcerer (since the text was easy to edit). But more and more I liked adventure games with interesting stories and challenging puzzles. I must admit I always preferred more serious or puzzle oriented games over pure comedies comedies. I was really hooked into adventures by Phantasmagoria and Gabriel Knight 2, first Atlantis (which even had czech dubbing), masterpiece Riven... And since that time, adventure games are by far the most favorite gaming genre for me...

My first game was King's Quest 3. I was about 8, and my English vocabulary was rubbish. I did not have a good time.

The first game I actually completed was "So you want to be a Hero", AKA Quest for Glory 1 EGA, which felt like a huge accomplishment. But it was Zak McKracken that *really* wooed me. I will never forget meeting Elvis on a giant spaceship shaped like a Cadillac, exploring the maze inside the sphinx, and visiting mars with a fish-bowl duct-taped to a wet-suit. The whole experience was so esoteric and bizarre that I craved for more.

My very first video game of any kind was Pong, the one in the 1970s that hooked up to a CRT TV and burned itself into the phosphor layer such that every show you watched forevermore had a Pong overlay. It was super fun for about two days and then… it wasn’t. To me anyway. My little brother played the living hell out of it. That’s how we got the phosphor burn-in on our TV.

My first game was King's Quest 3. I was about 8, and my English vocabulary was rubbish. I did not have a good time.

That puts a whole new dimension of pain onto the classic "guess the verb" problem.

I still haven't completed the overland path of Gold Rush because I could never guess the right verb to release the oxen.

I've kept this question in the back of my mind. I've done two different excersizes to reconnect with childhood experiences. My therapist seemed enthousiastic to try out a combination of narrative and art therapy - I was surprised at how well it worked.

My first adventure game experience was probably the MSX-2 game ZOO, a certified DUTCH Classic first person point & click adventure by Radarsoft. I didn't have access to a PC, but I had a couple of friends with home computers. One of them had a copy of Inspecteur Banaan en de ontvoering van MaBella. I was about seven around this time, I think.

I'd taught myself some basic English and people started asking me to help out with computer stuff. One family had a game they had no idea what to do with: King's Quest I. I gave them a rundown of the story, as understood by a Dutch seven/eight year old - and I was fascinated by the game. I was into Mario and Sonic and all that, but this was like walking around in a story, like the content of a book had come to life. The kid would later ask me how to say lewd things in Police Quest I.

Once me and my brothers got a access to a PC, I started searching out adventure games on shareware CDs. I remember The Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian teaching me the word cabinet. Lo-fi stuff like Dare to Dream and Dave Dude in: The Holiday Story '95. The Hugo games.

I was transported into space, playing my first text adventure: Deep Space Drifter. Maybe this is where I first became aware of the void.

Another time I went out of Earth's orbit: Mission Supernova. Probably the first game I played in German. After that, I discovered the phenomenon of the Werbespiel. It's a known fact: Germany puts some respect on adventure games. Not only did they keep the spirit going when the US sales weren't doing too well and deliver many great titles throughout the decades, German companies and even a government ministry commissioned adventure games as part of their media strategies. Promoting things from anti-racism to BiFi Rolls. I'd already turned vegetarian by that time (to the dismay of pretty much everyone) - I did play the heck out of the BiFi game, though. One of my favourite games in that particular phenomenon was Das Telekommando Kehrt Zurück! Maybe the first game I played start to finish (I was about.. eleven at the time).

I played parts of adventure games over at friends, mostly games by LucasArts. Fragments of those games stuck with me. A couple of years later (thirteen - fifteen), I'd play all of those games start to finish. I had my first couple of jobs, cleaning up after art classes at school, helping friends with a paper route, started working at a gas station at fifteen. Our local Free Record Shop invested in CD-roms and box sets, it quickly became half the store. Big new titles were expensive, but I had my eye on box sets and anniversary compilations. I got Loom, Zak McKracken, Full Throttle, Monkey Island 1 and 2, The three Kyrandia games, the King's Quest games. That was it for me. I was into strategy games, all sorts of rpgs (really into rogue-likes), but adventure games were just something different.