I grew up with a Mac because my dad is an engineering professor, and most specialist software he needed didn’t run on Windows. Part of his work also consisted of taking care of a hyperactive daughter, and he brilliantly solved the task by putting baby Giada in front of his Mac and letting her mash the keyboard. Most of those early games are fuzzy memories. And yet, the sound effects ring in my mind with crystalline clarity. I remember the “YEAAAAAH!” that greeted me every time I booted up the Centipede-like Apeiron. The “PEW PEW” of my spaceship shooting asteroids in Maelstrom. The metallic sound of cars hitting other cars in racing game Burning Rubber. Don’t ask me why my child self was allowed to play a game about running over cyclists, crashing against cars and avoiding the cops. I asked my dad and his official answer was: “Well, you seemed to really like it!” A+ parenting skills, dad. Looking back, I realize my gaming history is a bizarro world of other children’s memories, full of distorted versions of the games everyone knows.
Apeiron is not just a Centipede-like, but an exact replica of the game with a psychedelic coat of paint Maelstrom is just a prettier version of Asteroids.
Even games I was sure I hadn’t seen anywhere else turned out to be clones. My beloved Bubble Trouble, a game about pushing the walls of a labyrinth to squash enemies, is just an unlicensed reworking of classic arcade game Pengo. Games like this were the strong suit of Ambrosia Software, a now-defunct software house specialized in “enhanced remakes”. Despite the derivative nature of their games, they were a bunch with good moral principles.