Childhood toys and PC game genres

[lord of the mark]

yet another, wild, possibly insulting, hypothesis about the games we play

What toys did you play with as a kid, and is there a connection with the games you favor?

Examples

1. Toy Guns - FPS

2. Toy Trains - RRT type games, Simcity type games

3. Lego and construction toys - simcity type games, some RTS

4. Toy soldiers - RTS, TBS, Wargames

5. Dolls - a certain Maxis hit

6. Monster - hero action figures - RPG's

[Skanky Burns]

Lego. I play builder-style in SMAC.

I never played with dolls, so that removes a certain theory of yours too.

[Adagio]

I loved playing with Lego, and I love SimCity
And I played a lot with Action Force and Turtles (Action figures)... used them much for material arts fights (favorite movies)

[Mercator]

Mostly Lego (and some good old-fashioned wood and nails), and I find SimCity boring. I do like "some RTS" though (e.g. Commandos, Age of Empires)... And I also play my civ games "builder-style".

I've played with action figures a little bit (G.I. Joe, He-Man, Transformers), but they never held my attention for long... I've never seriously tried RPG's.

I haven't played with toy soldiers. Well, the above two could kind of fit that category, I guess. I've played lots with Lego pirates and knights...

But you forgot toy cars! (I like racing games too)

And I've played with dolls as well (inevitable, with two sisters). But no, I haven't played that certain game.

[General Ludd]

I mostly played with lego, too.

I have a wide range of tastes in computer games, but I'd say that strategy and roleplaying are above the rest.




When i was a kid my friend and I made a sort of turn-based strategy game with lego. We built a "map" by connected all of the land pieces I had together (which was quite alot) and we each controled a small tribe, with people being able to spend a certain amount of points building things, ect... and also having movement points for moving around the map. It was quite sophisticated - we gave all the different weapons stats for combat, people had movement points and hitpoints, you could build tools to enhance your production, and we had a system for calculating the 'cost' of any particular piece of of lego. We even had a monetary system built around a combination of the gold coins and "rubies" (those circular translucent pieces - and also their cone counter parts which counted as x10 a ruby).

[Jamski]

I mostly played TBS board-wargames that I made myself to play against my brother.

Then we moved onto minatures based rules using lego, and finally lead minatures.

Apart from that, it was toy soldiers, but I was a pretty active kid, so it was more "play soldiers" - digging a trench in the garden and manning the machine gun

-Jam

[Dis]

well I played with toy guns, who didn't? But I don't care for FPS's. I did play Battlefield:Vietnam for about 4 hours the other day at my brother's house. But I will never buy that game. I played Halo for about an hour, but I really have no desire to play anymore.

I played with hot wheels the most. I loved hot wheels. But I don't enjoy racing games.

Legos. I had these. I wasn't very good with them. I could never build anything that looked cool . But I loved them nevertheless.

green army men. Yep, I had those as well. Strangely, I haven't played the game called army men .

I also played with model ww2 ships (that my brother built ), and I ended up joining the U.S. Navy. but I haven't really played any navy games. I always thought about Harpoon, but I heard those games are hard.

now we move onto "toys"- they are more like games I played later in my childhood. I mostly played those TSR games.

the biggie of course is D&D. Although strangely, I haven't actually played a lot of D&D. I mainly spent time creating characters and dungeons. Playing with my best friend was aggravating. He supposedly played with some other friends and had a level 35 cleric. Creating a module for a level 35 cleric is not easy.

I loved a game called Car Wars. And the add-ons called... I can't remember what they were called. One incorporated big trucks, and the other one had something else.

I played a little bit of gamma world. But I was too young to really understand it.

There was this game called Ogre I think.

Axis and Allies of course.

So what you can see from above, most of those are RPG type games. And that is what I mostly play. Aside from Axis and Allies- that is my primary influence for Civ2 and SMAC. And later Civ3.

[General Ludd]

Actually, this survey might not be very good for younger generations since PC games are childhood toys. I was playing lode-runner on our commodore 64 at the age of 4-6, and games like tank wars a few years later when we got an IBM. And then the nintendo, of course. But even so, video games didn't take over other other activities like lego and 'playing outside' untill I was into my early teens.

[duke o' york]

Football, lots of football. Cricket in the summer of course.
And lego and meccano.

[Daz]

could be....

I mostly played with Lego and toy soldiers.... I play tbs, some rts.


I used to be a great fan of aicraft models. Didnt help me much though. First ride on a small plane ended in me barfing my guts out..... Terrible.... But loved playing Falcon...

[Bkeela]

Nice theory. I played with almost all of those toys at one time or another. Star Wars figurines and Action Man are basically dolls for boys.

Various board games and marbles are the first turn based games I played.

[DaveV]

Re: Childhood toys and PC game genres

Originally posted by lord of the mark
1. Toy Guns - FPS

As Dissident said, I think everyone played with these. We used to make rubber-band guns with a couple pieces of wood and a spring clothespin. Lots of fun. But I don't ever play FPS games, maybe because I'm too old and my reflexes are shot.

2. Toy Trains - RRT type games, Simcity type games

We had a train set, but I didn't play with it much. I saw it mostly as a geometry challenge - how to use the limited number of track pieces to make a cool layout. Once the track was down, I didn't see much point in driving the train around and around. I loved Railroad Tycoon, but I think that was because of the economic and competition components.

3. Lego and construction toys - simcity type games, some RTS

Lego, Erector set, Tog'l - I loved building stuff. I don't really enjoy sim city games (probably not goal-oriented enough for me), and I'm not much of a builder in TBS.

4. Toy soldiers - RTS, TBS, Wargames

I had a Creepy Crawlers set with the extra Fighting Men molds; I spent a lot of time playing with those guys. I don't really care for RTS or wargames, but TBS is what brought me to Apolyton and keeps me here.

5. Dolls - a certain Maxis hit

Nope (to both).

6. Monster - hero action figures - RPG's

I like RPGs, but never had any action figures. I suppose the Creepy Crawlers mentioned above would qualify as monsters, and I did get Horrible Hamilton (a pull-string plastic monster that was heavily advertised on the Saturday morning cartoons) for Christmas one year...

So I guess your theory mostly doesn't apply to me, but it's fun to reminisce about my childhood toys .