Congratulations Jacob!

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Mark · #1 Post by **Mark** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 6:27 am

That is a cute little boy your wife and you have there. Congratulations, and best wishes to all of you. Remember to present him with a C64 once he turns 8

#2 Post by **Gunness** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 3:55 pm

Thanks a lot - but why wait until he's 8? My daughter is already playing on my C64 emulator at the age of 4

Mark · #3 Post by **Mark** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 5:00 pm

Fair enough

.

I was thinking about a real C64, though. The good old breadbox.

#4 Post by **Gunness** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 9:43 pm

Yeah, okay, that's different. My breadbox is safely tucked away in the attic, secret plotting for world domination

I guess she can play with it in a couple of years. I think I'll have a hard time convincing her to give C64 adventures a go!

Mark · #5 Post by **Mark** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 7:35 am

Same goes for my C64, hehe. So once you start Operation Breadbox, make sure to give me a call. I'll be with you, and add the immense computing power of my machine to yours.

As for gaming, I'd say let the kids start with Space Taxi, Thrust, Wonderboy, etc. etc... That should hook them up to the machine. Adventures will follow all by themselves in due time. Worked for me

.

#6 Post by **Gunness** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:04 pm

Ha! One C64 could probably control a spaceship to the Moon, so two C64's should at least get us to Mars

Interesting that you should mention Thrust. I often have problems figuring out what games are easy enought for a small child to master. Thrust is....er..... not exactly at the top of the list. And Wonderboy seem to have an awful lot of pixel-perfect jumping required, too. Any other good starting games out there?

Mark · #7 Post by **Mark** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 7:44 am

Well, that's a good question. I had Thrust and Space Taxi in mind, because both have such a well-rounded feeling of inertia and gravity. Come to think of it - many C64 games are actually pretty hard, and need sophisticated "piloting". Hard to avoid the 'pixel-perfect jumping' you mentioned... Personally, I would say that in the first one or two years of my C64 career, I just more or less mindlessly fiddled with all the games, before I even got an idea about their real depth (at the age of 10-12, roughly).

As for games:

- Apple Cider. It's not exactly easy, but it is cute, in it's own pixely way. And short, so there is a reasonable chance to get a glimpse at a "win" screen.

- Park Patrol is pretty sweet.

- River Raid comes to mind, for some nice, not too complicated shoot-em-up intermezzo.

- Blue Max, which has a surprisingly smooth piloting feeling for its age. Can also be actually "solved", but that's rather hard.

- Next, there is Bruce Lee. Looks sort of ugly, but it is easy enough to handle basic fighting on the starting screens. And once you get accustomed to that, there are also a series of nice action puzzles you need to master to get to new screens, and eventually even solve the game. Personally, I love it.

Lots of fighting stuff there. Probably too much for very small kids, I reckon (the reason why I excluded Ghosts 'n Goblins, hehe). There are of course always Strategy games like Boulder Dash, or, one of my favourites: Battle Ships.

#8 Post by **Gunness** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 9:45 am

Some good suggestions there

I'd have to agreee that too many C64 games are too difficult (and too many are too easy). I guess they just didnt playtest enough back then. I mean.... give Cobra a brief spin and you'll be dead five times already.
Park Patrol and Boulderdash seem like nice starting points!