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Someone created two apps. Amytal would scrape Steam IDs to confirm what leagues the players were in. Bazbar would have a bot in IRC for #findscrim and allow us to chat with people.
Both apps could be run by sending commands from ingame chat.
It was awesome. Still no idea how they worked.
Then our high school got TRS-80s in the computer lab. I borrowed the BASIC manual and read it while I was supposed to be paying attention in calculus. (It only took an hour. That's something to keep in mind when designing a language for kids to learn.) I already knew FORTRAN, but changing a FORTRAN program took a week (create a deck of cards, hand it off to a teacher, they took it off-site and ran it, and brought back the results). Whereas BASIC I could change in a minute. (Yeah, those who say that a REPL is a big deal? Instant feedback really does change things.)
I guess QBasic. Something about drawing a round face with two eyes using commands was just irresistible for me at one point in my life. Also nibbles.bas.
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.