The best parenting decision I ever made as a retro gaming enthusiast
I love games — and have a soft spot in my heart for retro PC adventure games because I grew up playing them with my dad and throughout my youth.
The first adventure game I ever played with my dad was Space Quest II: Vohaul’s Revenge from Sierra Designs. It took us months to beat — a journey that included a real-world trip to Radio Shack to buy the hint book so we could get past the infamous swamp and berry puzzle. I cried when it was over, but luckily my dad took me to Radio Shack again and bought the first installment in that series. Those games kicked off a chapter of my life that included playing all the other Space Quest games, and many others from classic series’ like Quest for Glory, King’s Quest, and Legend of Kyrandia.
Throughout my life I would play dozens of adventure games, and although I don’t play them for myself really anymore, when my son was born I knew that I wanted to play those types of games with him. Our forays into gaming together in the first five years of his life have had some ups and downs.
I made a rookie mistake when we played a bit of Space Quest together and Roger Wilco met a particularly nasty demise, leading to a toddler fearfully questioning me before bedtime: “Giant sand worms aren’t really real, are they dad?” I had forgotten that a key characteristic of many classic adventure games is dying repeatedly in many different gruesome fashions. The dated pixel art of retro games tends to make them feel relatively childlike in the modern era of photorealistic graphics, and it’s easy to forgot that despite what they look like many classic games still feature mature themes that aren’t really suitable for very young children.
Shelving Space Quest for the time-being, I went on the hunt for other classic games that would be a better fit for a 4 year old. My son and I had some fun with the VGA remake of Mixed-Up Mother Goose, as I remembered the original was one of the very first games I ever played on my own without the help of a parent. An even better decision turned out to be a game that I had heard about growing up, but never played: EcoQuest — The Search for Cetus.
The plot of that game revolves around the young son of a marine scientist, who saves the king of the ocean — a whale named Cetus, helps clean up the ocean and learns valuable lessons about conservation and environmentalism along the way. Both my son and I loved playing EcoQuest together, and the few months of 15–30 minute morning sessions before preschool in which we completed the game are now cherished memories. Perhaps best of all, we then got to play the sequel, EcoQuest 2 — Lost Secret of the Rainforest which is every bit as compelling as the first.
Playing the EcoQuest games with my son was definitely the best gaming-related parenting decision I have made so far. If I could have only one gaming dream come true, it would be for an EcoQuest 3 to magically appear… as long as it held true to the standards and morals established by the series.
Following the EcoQuest series, my efforts to continue on with classic adventure gaming with my son have fallen a bit flat unfortunately. I tried to branch out into the LucasArts games by playing Day of the Tentacle, but it’s very dialogue heavy and I feel it might better suited for older children. I’ve heard good things about Torin’s Passage, so we might try that next instead.
Some of these classic games are easy to play on modern computer. Many games from Sierra Designs, like the Space Quest and King’s Quest games, are available for purchase on Good Old Games. You can’t buy EcoQuest though, and for most people sourcing an original copy and authentic hardware is not a viable option. At the time of writing, to get those games working on a modern PC you’ll need to download DosBox and do some Googling on how to use it.
Good luck; it’s very much worth the effort.
