"Digital only" before "Digital Only" was a thing: A Retrospective
Im probably younger than most here (29 as of this typing) so bear that in mind when I say that I have a good idea of what gaming was like for titles that werent on a physical format LOOOONG before anyone complained about publishers not releasing titles on physical media. My earliest experience was gaming on my dad's work computer which had Windows 3.11 on it. The games I remember were JezzBall, Chip's Challenge, and I believe Solitare and Minesweeper. There may have been a couple others but those are the ones I remember. These games to the best of my knowledge came built into the operating system. My dad has always been against video games so I know he didnt go out of his way to buy them, nor did my mom, and no one in my family had any idea how to "install" a game.
JezzBall was the one I spent the most amount of time with. There is something to be said about the simplistic gameplay, lack of sound, yet razor sharp resolution and beautiful contrasting of these games that I just have not seen on any other console except perhaps the Master System. Windows 3.11 really had some potential to be a great retro computer gaming experience that its a shame I wasnt able to take full advantage of it.
In school, if a kid had a Texas Instruments graphing calculator, there was a 95% chance that it had games on it. The one I remember the most was Fall Down. It was a very simple game that the closest thing I can compare to is the mini game in Wario Ware where it just says "Tilt!" But the screen scrolls. The games AfAIK were downloaded from the internet but at the time it was a mystery how these games got on there to begin with.
Shareware games were very popular in my household. Zulula, Mortal Pong, Cheesey Invaders, Cycl Warz, Aldos Adventure, Super Sales Acer, Super Sled Acer. These games were hilarious but still very playable despite being developed by high school students in some cases.
Years later, a website I frequented often was Candystand.com. there were some mini golf games with candy themes as well as a BMX game. This website has since been shut down but a few years ago I found a site where I could download the mini golf game. That brought back some good memories.
Unfortunately a lot of these games are much less accessible now, and impossible in some cases to play in their original state. It makes one realize how important it is for physical media to exist. Many of the games made back then were so basic in nature that obviously they couldnt have been manufactured on a massive scale but if they had made them available as Manufactured on Demand similar to many DVD releases, it couldve been a viable way to keep the games alive.
Besides those mentioned, I cant think of many other video games from the 90s that were digital only. Can anyone else think of any others from the 90s or even the 80s that didnt have physical releases?
Edit: oh yeah forgot one more- The Games Factory 3. It had an RPG built into it that was actually really fun. I made a Galaga ripoff with cutscenes in between. The final boss was the guy who was supposedly trying to help you the whole time. Wish I still had that
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