ZX81, C64, then an Amiga 500 in 1987. Playing games was great. Making the machine do things was better.
In 1988 I co-founded Public Enemies, and next to the demos I wrote a couple of games. We even tried to sell one, inspired by SEGA's Hot Rod, right up until Activision released the official Amiga Hot Rod in 1990. Into a drawer it went.
Meanwhile the arcades had me for life: Commando, Ghosts'n Goblins, Wonder Boy, and a frankly irresponsible amount of pocket money. I never stopped wondering how they did it, and the only way to really find out is to write it yourself.
In 2020 I came back to the C64, and the itch came right back with it. So, forty-odd years after that ZX81: proper games, on cartridge. Two so far ;)
Kong-Fu Masters
A cat, a dog and a fox brawl through twelve fully animated rooms for a spray-painted golden floppy, and the best move in the game is picking your opponent up and carrying them off a ledge. Lobo built the world and drew it together with Mikael, DivertigO wrote the music, and I wrote the code.
Up to three players, four sprites each, on a machine with eight. It is nearly done and heading for a boxed cartridge release, which makes it the first game I will ever have published. Only took forty years.
Wonder Boy
The arcade game that ate my pocket money in a pizzeria at thirteen, and the C64 version that broke my heart. Forty years on, I am writing the port I wanted back then: arcade rules from the original code, SEGA Master System looks.
Eight sprites, a full multicolour bitmap scrolling horizontally and vertically, a multiplexer juggling swarms of bees and a boss too big for sprites, all on a 1 MB cartridge with no loading. The story of how, in plain words. Still in the workshop.