Man, the type in programs that were featured back in the day bring back so many memories for me. I loved this aspect of magazines. I even bought magazines for computers that I didn't own or have access to because the programming stuff was so interesting to me.
I preferred the 'choose your own adventure' style games from the type in sections. I would type their version in then go back and edit it to make my own game. My plan was to save it to disk and come back later when I had forgotten the solutions (I had no friends that were into this genre). Sadly, I don't think I ever went back and tried any out.