In the Beginning
It was the early ’90s. I must have been about six years old, sat in front of a computer screen — not for the first time, but this time felt different.
Until then, computers had been something to watch. I remember glimpses of Sport of Kings on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, but I was just a spectator. This moment was different. The green cursor blinked on a black screen, waiting. Even then, I had the strange sense that this meant something… I just didn’t know what yet.
A few months later, my uncle introduced me to a game that would change everything.
A young pirate stood on screen — Guybrush Threepwood — clutching treasure beside a sign with a shovel attached. Moments later, he was ambushed by the wonderfully unpleasant Largo LaGrande, robbed, and left hanging upside down over a swamp.
And that was it. I was hooked.
With a few clumsy mouse clicks (skills mostly honed from enthusiastic games of Solitaire), I found myself exploring Woodtick on Scabb Island. But this wasn’t just a game — it was a puzzle, a story, a world. To progress, I had to read. To understand, I had to pay attention.
Without realising it, I was learning.
That was the beginning of my love for point-and-click adventure games — and, in many ways, the beginning of everything that followed.
