I recently took part in an interesting challenge on Mastodon. The guidelines were:
"20 games that underpinned key moments in your life. Screenshot or box art, no review, no explanation, just games."
It was fun to look back at some old favourites, of course, and nice seeing what other people responded to, but the most interesting thing was that the challenge was to choose games that _underpinned key moments of your life_. Not your favourite games, not the best games, but the ones that you associate with key moments. For me, that was thinking about games which I associate with memories outside the game - friends or family I played with, the places I was in when I played them, how I discovered them.
I ended up with a list of 50 or so, which I whittled down randomly, then slightly curated (I wanted to stick to randomness, but found that I couldn't bring myself to leave out a couple). I didn't post them in any particular order, but here's the list:
| Index | Title | Developer | Release year | Platform played on | Toot |
| 1 | Repton | Tim Tyler / Superior Software | 1985 | BBC Micro | Day 1: Repton |
| 2 | The Secret of Monkey Island | Lucasfilm Games | 1990 | Atari ST | Day 2: The Secret of Monkey Island |
| 3 | Celtic Legends | Ubi Soft | 1991 | Amiga | Day 3: Celtic Legends |
| 4 | Zork | Infocom | 1977 | Osborne 1 | Day 4: Zork |
| 5 | Doom | id Software | 1993 | PC | Day 5: Doom |
| 6 | The Settlers | Blue Byte | 1993 | Amiga | Day 6: The Settlers |
| 7 | Star Wars: TIE Fighter | LucasArts | 1994 | PC | Day 7: Star Wars: TIE Fighter |
| 8 | Portal | Valve | 2007 | PC | Day 8: Portal |
| 9 | Quake | id Software | 1996 | PC | Day 9: Quake |
| 10 | Dragon Age: Origins | Bioware | 2009 | PC | Day 10: Dragon Age: Origins |
| 11 | Super Bomberman | Hudson Soft | 1993 | Super Nintendo | Day 11: Super Bomberman |
| 12 | Diablo | Blizzard Entertainment | 1997 | PC | Day 12: Diablo |
| 13 | Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic | Bioware | 2003 | PC | Day 13: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic |
| 14 | Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis | LucasArts | 1992 | Amiga | Day 14: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis |
| 15 | Street Fighter II | Capcom | 1992 | Super Nintendo | Day 15: Street Fighter II |
| 16 | Volume | Bithell Games | 2015 | PlayStation Vita | Day 16: Volume |
| 17 | Sim City 2000 | Maxis | 1993 | PC | Day 17: Sim City 2000 |
| 18 | Ultima VII | Origin Systems | 1992 | PC | Day 18: Ultima VII |
| 19 | Gran Turismo 3 | Polyphony Digital | 2001 | PlayStation 2 | Day 19: Gran Turismo 3 |
| 20 | Lemmings | DMA Design | 1991 | Amiga | Day 20: Lemmings |
With all of these, I have very specific memories of times, places and people. I'm not sure what the list tells me, if anything, about my history. Was the 90s a more important time in my life than the 2010s? Was the Amiga a better or more signficant system than the Playstation 3? I imagine that if I looked at the years I played these games, rather than the years they were released, the distribution would probably peak somewhere in my teens, and I'm sure that would be the case for a lot of people. When you're younger, life changes faster, your tastes are broadening as you discover new things and you have less to deal with, so you can spare more time/energy for enjoying things. I remember listening to an episode of the Laser Time podcast (looks like Episode 47, August 2012) where the hosts were discussing their most important age - the year where it seemed like they discovered the things that they love. For most, it was somewhere in their early teens, and I think that fits with my 20 games list.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun coming up with the list, finding screenshots and box art to post and taking a trip down memory lane. As a fun project, I might revisit each of these games and see how they match up to my recollections.