Ever played games on a monochrome screen?

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

You might laugh at this but, for a time, I thought games were monochrome-only — I couldn't even imagine them being in color!

That's because I grew up with an old computer that only had a black and white monitor to work with — it was all my dad ever needed to do his job and, thus, we didn't upgrade to a Windows PC with all the bells and whistles until I was halfway through my elementary education.

Needless to say, it was day and night.

But I gotta confess something: I actually do miss playing games like that.

Monochrome graphics were such a mood that they actually made me appreciate my games more — there was an almost "honest" relationship between game and player when the former was stripped down to its more barebone essentials (including crude and shrilling PC speaker sounds) and its only goal was to be fun.

My favorite ones weren't trying to "wow" me with their graphics and sounds the way a modern game would, so gameplay was king and I was a happy subject to it.

Man, I loved it lots.

Did you?

 

[Lod 10]

When I was a kid, I used to play brick games, which had 99 games and were just variations of Tetris.

 

[Sorion]

when I was a kid, my childhood crt had a grayscale feature that I accidentally turned on one day and I didn't know how to turn back off, so I played games in black and white for a while hahaha, my younger cousin came to visit one day, saw the TV and he got upset with the grayscale colors so he started to mess with the front panel of the TV, he managed to activate them again just before we stopped him and that was the end of my black and white gaming journey ^^

 

[ArchienineZXAdventArchienineZXAdvent's icon]

No, we had a more modern technology (not too much xD)

 

[tht009]

My first PC experience was 16-bit and my first handheld was a GBA, so I unfortunately missed the real version of that time period. I've enjoyed monochrome games on emulators since then though, like Gargoyle's Quest on Gameboy. I do appreciate the simplicity, (graphical complexity tends to steal focus from other things, like making the game actually fun) although technically I've only ever played monochrome games on color screens because I have the misfortune of being a young millennial. Many tech experiences I grew to appreciate later in life were unavailable to me because I was a fetus, sperm cell, or protein strand when they were new.

 

[Zerpina]

I don't know if the original Game Boy technically counts since it was four shades of green and yellowish-green, not monochrome really....

Though I did play a few of those old Tiger handhelds, and I think those were monochrome... or at least would count as.... And, to quote the nerd they where..

As a kid.... I had a few of the Tiger games. Never mind you new, getting them for a buck or two at yard sales, thrift shops, and the like. As I have said in the past, I was a poor kid growing up. It sucked, but what do you do?

Did I enjoy them? Eh, as much as a kid could. It was something to play with, at least.

 

[MegaDrive1987]

Original GameBoy for me that I got in 1998.

 

[Sheepy765]

I can't say I have, though I have played games in monochrome before.

 

[Kremiso]

old bear here
i had a bulky 25" black & white crt as a first tv for gaming

it was positioned inside my wardrobe :)

mostly C64 times, yes many games were fabulous the same
like Uridium

EDIT
later in time, my dad first PC also had a monochrome monitor, it was a IBM PS/2, MCGA graphics; used a lot too from myself, gaming ofc

 

[HydraSavior]

I had a tiny black and white TV for my room when my parents divorced. There was a color TV in the living room, set to mostly PBS, but I was slumming it in my room with a copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 in black and white.

 

[lestagio]

Besides a Game Boy if that counts, no, not a real monochrome screen. By the time I had really gotten into computer games when I was young, VGA was all the rage, LOL.

 

[Advil Lavs]

No, I'm too young for that. But I have played a few monochrome/black n white games and they usually have some clever tricks to keep everything readable and good-looking.

 

[Vexicrypt]

Yeah, I had a Alcatel OT 715 (which previously was my dad's phone) back in the day. It had a monochrome screen and some built in games. Though I only remember one, some sidescroll shooter. You had to hold the phone horizontally to play it and I thought that was the coolest shit ever.

 

[shaggi shaggi]

When I was a kid, I used to play brick games, which had 99 games and were just variations of Tetris.

Same for me. Also my first cellphone was one with monochrome screen and I was playing games on it.

 

[Lod 10]

Same for me. Also my first cellphone was one with monochrome screen and I was playing games on it.

It seems we've had similar experiences. Have a great Sunday!

 

[Macaulay Kong]

I think only Tiger Electronics and the original Gameboy, really. The DOS games I had as a kid were in color and the black-and-white Tv my grandparents had wasn't compatible with consoles, so I played those on a color CRT

 

[shaggi shaggi]

It seems we've had similar experiences. Have a great Sunday!

Thanks. Have a nice day too.

 

[Lod 10]

Thanks. Have a nice day too.

You're welcome.

 

[Grumpy_Old_Man]

Three things come to mind, playing the nes on a 14 inches monochrome crt in the late eighties early nineties. If you count ascii graphics, I tend to play a lot of roguelikes and somewhat related to the topic at hand, text adventures.

 

[Lod 10]

Now I remember something, I was playing Naruto on PS2 on a black and white TV at a friend's house, I miss him so much.