Well, I was fooling about with an Apple //e emulator and suddenly I was struck by a sense of nostalgia; I had /never/ finished an old Apple // game that I had checked out from the Hennepin County Library (in Minnesota.) The interesting thing about this game was that most of the flavortext was in the 26-ish booklets (they were labeled by letter) that came with it.
What I can remember about the content of the game is pretty shoddy; it was a space exploration game which had a labyrinthine map of Scienterrific[tm] spacewarpthingies to varieties of different planets.
The game wasn't small, that was for sure.
Anyone have any memories of a game like this?
Hi, there were many space exploring games on Apple II. Do you have more details about this game? Like was it an RPG style game (like Ultima) or an adventure graphic game with type-in commands? What planets were explored (eg Saturn, Venus)? If you recall this info it might help identify the game.
Well, it relied on about two floppies, if memory serves me right... It was an interstellar explorer game (multiple star systems) linked with various hyperspace paths, each system was 'colored' and the only reference to the color of the star systems was on the map that was shipped with the game.
It was a RPGish game, with elements of 'better equipping' your ship, as well as a part of being a 'trader' game as well. There were minimal graphics but the graphics that were present weren't the blocky GR of yore. There was a proper graphics engine behind it. Combat was pretty text-based, but I can't remember how in-depth it was.
As I said earlier, it relied a lot on the slew of booklets (about eight to ten inches square with about 24-32 pages apeice) that contained all the really good dialogue and expostion.
The funny thing was that the entire game was practically unplayable without the map or wodge of booklets.
Here are three space simulation sci-fi games for Apple II : Elite, Echelon and Space Rogue. All are based on interplanetary travel with either intergalactic trading for Elite and more combat and battle for Echelon and Space Rogue. Mostly wire-frame graphics.
The well-known Elite fits on one floppy disk while Echelon and Space Rogue need two disks. All rely heavily on some documentation to be played properly, so it's a good thing the game available at your library back then came complete with manuals, maps etc.
Here are some game screenshots. Hopefully one of these is the unique game you're looking for.
Elite by Braben & Bell, 1985
Echelon Access Software, 1988
Space Rogue Origin Systems, 1989
Apple II Forever!
Could the game you're looking for be Star Saga One? Looking at the write up about it at Home of the Underdogs it sounds like the game you're describing. Check out this link to see if it is the game.
http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=3383
I'm trying to find a link to the Apple II version of it.
Dean
It was actually Star Saga Two! I was going through my mental images of where the games were located in the library and all the 'E' games seemed to be too far to the left as far as the filing was concerned. Also, since I belatedly remembered that it was the /second/ of the series, I was about to post about this.
The Underdogs has the manuals for both, which means as soon as I find the Apple emulators (because I'm not about to install a DOS emulator), it'll be Nostalgia O'Clock.
Thank you folks again for the well informed responses. As soon as I find a decent Universal emulator that supports joysticks (and a USB joystick which doesn't have more buttons than I have fingers), I will also try the other games listed here.
Are you saying you have disk images of both Star Saga One and Two for the Apple II? If so is there any chance I could get copies of those from you? I remember seeing Star Saga One back in the day but never got around to buying it.
Thanks,
Dean
Nope, I'm still looking. Underdogs has the PC versions (which will work under DOSBox for MacOSX)
If you happen to find this or Star Saga Two for the Apple II let me know. I remember being curious about the game back in the day.
Dean
All I can find thus far are the DOS .zip files.
It's not on any Apple// archive I can find thus far. :/