12 January 2014

Andromeda Conquest

Andromeda Conquest is a home computer game released by Avalon Hill in 1982. It is unimpressive, a text only game written in BASIC. What makes it interesting is that it is one of the first "4X" computer games.








"4X" refers to "explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate". This game is a precursor to such 1990s games,now classics, as "Masters of Orion", "Civilization" and "Command and Conquer"
It's a simple empire building game, with some 1970s Trek-like combat gameplay. I fear modern audiences would give it a very big yawn, and it is playable mainly for historical and nostalgic reasons.

  It was so lacking in features that you had to keep track of some data on a separate piece of paper.







This is about as exciting as it got.

Andromeda Conquest was released simultaneously on various consoles. There were several separate releases, each for specific consoles. The releases and their consoles are:

Cassette release: Atari 400/800 (32K RAM required), Apple II and II+ (AppleSoft BASIC and 16KB RAM required), PET CBM (40 column display and 16KB RAM required), and TRS-80 (models I and III; Level II BASIC and 16KB RAM required)
Unknown media: Commodore 64 (64KB Ram required), TRS-80 (models I, III, and IV; Level II BASIC and 16KB RAM required), Atari 400/800 (32K RAM required)
48K floppy, Apple II only release: "Apple II or II+ with DOS 3.3 (Disk II), 48K Memory and Applesoft in ROM."

click to enlarge








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