I grew up with an Aplle IIc and I loved Conan the Barbarian. A neighbor made me a copy and I used to absolutely love playing that game. I remember there was a message on the screen when you died, and the one burnt in my mind is "The eyes have it". I also loved Prince of Persian for the 486. That one I actually beat. Your history is very similar to mine. Now, I have been coding for decades, but it all started on the Apple IIc.
Happy days. I think Prince of Persia is one of the only games I beat.
Did you ever play Another World by Erich Chahi? Still one of the greatest games and still good today.
Oh hell yeah. My neighbor had that for his commodore 64. I never owned that one, but I was blown away by its graphics and how smooth the animations were. I have not thought about that game in a really long time. Good times! I also loved text based adventures. Like probably lots of kids in the early 80s, one of the first ones I played was Adventure. I also loved The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Infocom was awesome. I have been playing through the zork series with my 14 year old recently.
One other game I absolutely loved for the Apple II was Captain Goodnight. I got really far into that game, but I don't think I ever beat it.
buck rodgers on c64
I've never heard it mentioned, but I think Another World was visually influenced by another French project, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartakus_and_the_Sun_Beneath_...