It's also the thirtieth birthday of the ZX Spectrum. My first computer was a Spectrum+. I didn't cut me teeth programming my own games and so didn't go on to found a software house, but never mind, I still had fun with it. And the games' limitations often got me thinking about how much further they could go and how much more choice they could offer, which fed back into my early GMing.
The visuals never quite lived up to the Oliver Frey covers for Crash magazine - off to reread The Terminal Man...
Even so, there were some great games, notably the adventure games and the bigger arcade-adventures (now there's a phrase to confuse younger gamers with) like the Wally Week series, a version of The Hobbit that can still make me wince at the memory of "Thorin sings of gold", the BBFC 15-rated adventure version of Dracula, my introduction to the story of Cuchulainn in Tir Na Nog, the spectacularly insane Frankie Goes To Hollywood and more. As well as things like Elite obviously.
Hmm. A game based around the lyrics and iconography of a band... or a highly unfortunate car mechanic and his pub darts team...
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