2. What’s the first game you remember playing—and how did it make you feel? - Lee
Day two of the 30 Day Game Dev series
Lee Sargent
4/18/20251 min read
What’s the first game you remember playing—and how did it make you feel?
So… I think the first game I ever saw was Pong.
Yup. Pong.
I’m that old.
(Okay, not quite that ancient, but some mornings do feel like a firmware update away from fossilisation.)
I have this vague memory of someone owning one of those Pong-only consoles—you know the kind, where the whole machine was dedicated to making two lines bat a dot back and forth. The “joysticks” were just dials. It was, technically, a sports simulator. Sort of.
What’s wild is: it still works. Not just as code, but as a concept. Pong is weirdly timeless. The fact that something that simple can still be fun? That’s a lesson for all of us.
Was I blown away? Not really. I don’t remember being hooked.
But I remember noticing.
It wasn’t until the Atari 2600 came along that I truly fell into the game dev rabbit hole. Pong might’ve been the first contact, but the 2600? That’s when the obsession kicked in.
