RPG Maker 1998. For weeks as an elementary school kid I hounded some hobbyist game dev forums about what the hell "variable" means, until an older member relented and tutored me.

I was doing simple things like custom spell animations and cut scenes. I built a few dungeon rpgs back then, and sought more and more powerful tools to make simple games, GML, and finding Java in highschool was my first experience with a "real" language.