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

Overlord (1990 Computer Game)

This European game By David Perry and Nick Brunty was originally  written for the Atari ST computer, released in 1990 . An Amiga port soon followed, and a couple of years later a DOS port. It was called "Supremacy: Your Will Be Done" in the European market and "Overlord" in the US.

  It is your basic Interstellar resource management game, written before they became so alike. That's what makes it fun.

 The goal of Supremacy is to create and protect a network of planetary colonies and defeat a computer adversary who is trying to do the same. There are four skill levels, each represented by an enemy race, and each featuring a progressively stronger opponent. The more advanced a system is, the more freedom a player has when purchasing spacecraft. Higher skill levels also result in different numbers of planets in each system.

The 1993 NES version game could be considered an early example of real-time strategy, allowing direct control over missile launch, and hover tanks (1 on the map at any given time) on the offensive side, while offering direct control over the plasma cannon defense base and partial control over the   defense bases.

Atari ST

Commodore Amiga

B-1 Nuclear Bomber (Computer Game)

It pains me to think what the retail price of this turkey from 1980 was..probably at least $20, which would be like $55 today. Honestly, most of the games appearing in Creative Computing magazine in the late 1970s were better.

Avalon Hill, a company known for it's war board games in the 60s and 70s, really boned their customers with this one. I guess they should be congratulated for exploring new media, but holy cow this was bad. Written in BASIC there were versions for the Apple ][ and the Commodore Pet.

The box art is the best part.

Good heavens, even HUNT THE WUMPUS had more depth.

So embarrassingly bad, it makes OREGON TRAIL look like a masterpiece.

These machines looked so cool..but this was the kind of stuff available for them. No wonder so many people learned to code BASIC back then-just to design their own, better games. I know I did.

STAR WARS (DOS Game)

   In 1989 Brøderbund Software ported , to DOS, the arcade game STAR WARS. This was a simple Twitch & Shoot game, but the vector graphics were quite nice for the time of 286 machines with 4 color displays.

    Most of these screen grabs are from the 16 color EGA mode, although it doesn't take advantage of it.

here is the original "hercules" mode.

   The game puts you in the role of Luke Skywalker, in the X-Wing cockpit, fighting wave after wave of the Empire's TIE Fighters in a dramatic space drama that culminates in the attack on the Death Star itself. 

 While short on plot, it is a significant step in the evolution of computer games.

The first generation of consoles had been gone for years now, and the market was dominated by the likes of Nintendo, which was marketed for simple play such as this. 

 The company , on the eve of the PC game expolsion, would soon become quite successful, but be gone before the turn of the century.

Use the force, Luke

Millennium:Return to Earth (DOS Game)

Thanks to a great application for OS X called Boxer, I am able to once again enjoy old computer games I haven't been able to play in 20 or more years (thanks to Windows not being backward compatible) ((I booted Windows out the window for good when stuff written for an earlier version of Vista wouldn't run on a version a year later))

Millennium:Return To Earth is a 1991 DOS game in the "resource management" genre. It is somewhat simplified compared with titles such as Masters of Orion and the Sid Meier's Civilization types. It is a remake of a 1989 Amiga game Millennium 2.2 by the same author, Ian Bird, would years later give us the very odd Millennia: Altered Destinies.

In the game, humanity has colonized the Moon and Mars. However a 20 trillion ton asteroid has collided with Earth, making it uninhabitable. All that is left of humanity is a small, self-sufficient colony on the surface of the Moon, and a race of mutant humans on Mars. As the commander of Moonbase, it is your job to ensure the survival of humankind by exploring the Solar System for other habitable planets and moons, and ultimately re-establish life on Earth. However, the Martian mutants consider themselves the superior race and want Earth for themselves. A war is inevitable.

Mutant Martians will constantly be messing  with you until you take the fight to them!

The only break from the resource management simulation comes when the player is under attack by Martians. Combat is represented with a space ship fighting mini-game with basic 3D graphics. Initially the game is a race against time as each attack is heavier than the previous. The player eventually must find the necessary technology to attack Mars to make the attacks cease, establish a base there, and while there discover the terraforming technology.

The player needs to balance manufacturing output with the available solar power, and many minerals are only available from certain planets or asteroids. Depending on planetary orbits, colony ships and probes can take longer to reach their destinations. As time progresses, colonists will adapt to different atmospheres, and after Earth is terraformed, secede from the player's control (this event will also strand any of player's ships that may be docked on those planets).

Explore and use the planets and moons of the solar system

All that is left of Humanity is sheltered in these domes, which you must protect.

You must mine the resources you will need to make weapons and spaceships. Some can only be found on other worlds!

Research new spaceships and weapons systems

Energy must also be allocated to Production

Sometimes your exploration brings bad news

You can travel the solar system in a number of ship types

The beauty of this game is that it not so complex as some of the others that came later in the genre...it is much more fun and less like work.

Identical , it seems, to the earlier MILLENNIUM 2.2 (referring to the date the game begins)

 FOREVER GEEK... 25 years ago I was editing our local computer club's newsletter... yes, before the Internet we used to get together face to face. We ran a BBS during the late 80s, one user at a time, the whole thing living on 4 single sided floppy drives. Computers used to be fun