DOS Games Discussion

I already posted about this game back in 2007, but didn't ever get a very good answer. I still might now, but I was looking through my Forums links, found this, and decided "eh, it couldn't hurt to give it another try, now that it's two and a half years later". And this time, rather than trying to overload with information, I'll just give what I can definitely remember.

The story was set maybe 300-ish years in the future, soon after humans acquired the ability to leave the solar system and travel to other star systems. They find only two alien races, both humanoid if I recall correctly, who are sentient but haven't acquired space travel. Humans give the aliens their technology because they feel it will improve the lives of the races. However, decades later, after both alien races had expanded and colonized several solar systems of their own, the three races declare war on each other.

This was a very old game, such that it didn't have much color (either a few colors or just blue and white, can't remember which), and it came out before Windows 95. It might have been a shareware game.

The game was in top-down perspective, played only on a screen that displayed various simple icons of space ships and missiles. You were able to direct where your own ships should move or fire through a system of orders, selecting the order then clicking where it should go. Each ship had a set number of power units, and you were able to divert power to various systems, such as weapons and engines. You were never able to build ships or train soldiers like in 4X games. Instead, you were given different scenarios to select, which gave you a short little background story of what the current conflict is and what you had to do to win. You could sometimes control star bases which were like large, well-defended, stationary ships, but you could not move off-screen.

As you can see, it's pretty vague (and I doubt the game was that popular to begin with, but I can definitely tell you what game it's NOT, based on other forums: Star Control, Supremacy/Overlord, Masters of Orion, Space Quest, Space Invaders, or Star Legion. I've played, tested out, or looked at screenshots from all those games, and none match up.

Feel free to suggest another game, or perhaps better yet, ask a question on some detail of the game. I'll see what I can remember about that if you do. :-)

I think i no the name of the game u are talking about. is it IGB. it sounds about right except there was 4 races and it had a star trek theme and it allowed u to create ur own alliances and stuff does that sound about right? well if u think this might be the game ur after then i can find a way to get it to u free.

Anonymous wrote:I think i no the name of the game u are talking about. is it IGB. it sounds about right except there was 4 races and it had a star trek theme and it allowed u to create ur own alliances and stuff does that sound about right? well if u think this might be the game ur after then i can find a way to get it to u free.

ok to try out this game get an acount on http://www.esnips.com/ then go to http://www.esnips.com/doc/a7efb246-1881 ... ca4e73/IGB and download the rar file make sure u can open it with winrar that u can get for free at: http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm
look under Localized WinRAR versions and look for the english version and download n install then u can open the file and then play. enjoy if it's wat u were looking for.

I found the game on http://archives.scovetta.com/pub/fehq/D ... _index.htm, and got it running.

Well, this complicates things a little. The game definately has PARTS of what I was looking for. For example, there's no chance this energy allocation thing ISN'T what I was looking for:


Yeah, that image has been etched in my brain from more than a decade ago. And most of the game is similar too. The only thing, there are parts of it completely different than what I was asking for, the most obvious being that this is directly based on Star Trek, but what I was thinking of had its own distinct storyline.

Which leads me to conclude that what I've really been doing is combining the memory of two or more games, and my memory has combined parts of Intra-Galactic Battles with the memory of a similar but different game.

That could also help explain why it was so hard for people to guess what I was thinking of, because I didn't have the memory of a distinct game.

Now, I can play this game, and try to separate out what the second game is that merged with this one, and I deeply thank you for that.

Which leads me to conclude that what I've really been doing is combining the memory of two or more games, and my memory has combined parts of Intra-Galactic Battles with the memory of a similar but different game.

This happens very very often, often enough that I sometimes have to cajole people into playing a game because they say "oh no, that couldn't be my game, is doesn't have this or this or that." I remember a poster who was absolutely convinced the game he was looking for wasn't Baldur's Gate, despite months of people on different forums telling him it probably was, until he actually played it and figured out it *was* his game. He had just somehow spliced the plot and layout of Baldur's Gate with a completely different game. (probably an Ultima game from the sound of it)

Just for kicks, here's what remains of the vague memory now that I've found IGB, to see what would happen if I tried to isolate the game. At this point, however the memory is too mixed up with IGB and possibly Harpoon, and too faded to have many disctinct markings to re-find it.

The story was set maybe 300-ish years in the future, soon after humans acquired the ability to leave the solar system and travel to other star systems. They find only two alien races, both humanoid if I recall correctly, who are sentient but haven't acquired space travel. Humans give the aliens their technology because they feel it will improve the lives of the races. However, decades later, after both alien races had expanded and colonized several solar systems of their own, the three races declare war on each other. This is now the most important part of the memory, and the most distinct from others.

This was a very old game, such that it didn't have much color (either a few colors or just blue and white, can't remember which), and it came out before Windows 95. It might have been a shareware game.

The game was in top-down perspective, played only on a screen that displayed various simple icons of space ships and missiles. You were able to direct where your own ships should move or fire through a system of orders, selecting the order then clicking where it should go, not in the way Real Time Strategy games work, but closer to the order system of the game Harpoon. Each ship had a set number of power units, and you were able to divert power to various systems, such as weapons and engines, I think, though I might just be mixing the game up with Intra-Galactic Battles. You were never able to build ships or train soldiers like in 4X games. Instead, you were given different scenarios to select, which gave you a short little background story of what the current conflict is and what you had to do to win. You could sometimes control star bases which were like large, well-defended, stationary ships, but you could not move off-screen.

My memory of the game is very vague, and I'm not quite sure, but I don't believe it was any of these games: Star Control, Supremacy/Overlord, Masters of Orion, Space Quest, Space Invaders, Star Legion or Intra-Galactic Battles. I've played, tested out, or looked at screenshots from all those games, and none seem to match up.

Eh, I'll probably never find that game again (if it even existed, come to think of it), but it was pretty fun, and though it had some similarities to IGB, it wasn't IGB.

P.S. Quick response, Dogbreath. :-)

Huh? I just tried posting, but the forum said I had 'cia lis' in my post and threw it away. So I wrote it again, saved it to notepad, and it still did it. It turns out that the word "so cial ist" was triggering the spam filter, because it has ci al is in it.

Anyway, it turns out I spoke too soon. I forgot to read the rules file that come with the game, and when I did, I found the plot coincided with my memory perfectly:

Intra-Galactic Battles Background

The Federation is the name given to the United Countries on Earth and
those Earth colonies on other planets which remain loyal to the Earth.
The Federation was formed in the year 2022 when the three major capitalist
super-powers (The United States of America, Japan, and The Union of Soviet
Social ist Republics) decided to unite under a single government for
economic reasons. By the year 2055 the other nations of the earth had
joined the Federation either voluntarily or by force.

The most important and revolutionary discovery since Einstein's theory
of general relativity was made in the year 2054 by a group of scientists
working for the Andromedan Corporation, the worlds main producer of space
probes and exploration vehicles. These scientists developed theories and
made discoveries regarding the existence of fourth dimensional space which
later led to the development of a space warping device by which matter
could be transported over a short distance without passing through the
space between the starting and ending points.

In the year 2104 the first warp engine was made by the Andromedan
corporation. This engine could only move a ship at slow speeds at a great
energy cost and was therefor not practical at that time. As technology
advanced new sources of energy such as matter-antimatter generators were
developed. Warp engines then became the main source of propulsion for
spacecraft.

The materials needed for the matter-antimatter reaction to occur were
rare and expensive. An abundance of these materials was eventually
discovered by the Andromedan Corporation on a planet located 187 light
years from Earth. This planet was known then only as planet AXJ-74-4.
Despite the ten years required to get there, it was quickly colonized by
the people of Earth. Eventually however in the year 2195 the people of
this planet revolted against the Federation and formed their own
government. They became known as the Andromedans.

The first alien intelligent life was discovered by federation
explorers in the year 2128 on a planet 105 light years from Earth. The
people on this planet were living in their stone age and were very
barbaric in their ways having no respect for life whatsoever. They were
however found to be highly intelligent. This newly discovered race of
people called themselves the Gorgons and that is what they became known as
to the people of the Earth. The Gorgons were both educated and exploited
by the Federation. They were given the latest Federation technology which
they used against the Federation in order to gain their independence in
the year 2218. The Gorgons because of their barbaric nature became the
most feared enemy of both the Federation and the Andromedan empire. Due to
the great distances between the planets the Gorgons, at that time, were
not a great threat to humanity.

Shortly after the discovery of the Gorgons, another intelligent race
of people was discovered in the year 2142. These people called themselves
by no one name for they were not united. They lived in small tribes and
villages and many of these tribes only survived by raiding the farming
villages. These people became known to the people of Earth as the Orions
because they were located at one of the stars in the constellation of
Orion. The people of Earth gave the gift of technology to the Orions as
they had not yet learned their lesson from the Gorgons. In the year 2225
the Orions gained their independence. While the Orions are not as
barbaric and cold blooded as the Gorgons, they do continue to survive by
stealing from nearby planets and passing ships. For this reason they are
considered to be a menace by the Federation.

Over the years 54 other intelligent races of beings have been
discovered however none have been interfered with in any way and all of
them are thousands of years behind the Federation in technology. If there
are other races which are more advanced than the Federation, they
apparently don't want to be discovered.

It is now the year 2355. There has been peace with the Federation
for over 100 years but now tensions are building between the Federation,
Andromedan, Gorgon, and Orion empires as it now only takes a matter of
hours to travel from one home planet to the other.

Battles have been breaking out all over the galaxy. You are the
commander of a starship or perhaps a fleet of starships. It is your job
to defend your empire and win the war for your people.

So, this IS the game I was thinking of. I just assumed it wasn't because it called one faction the Federation, and the title screen forgot to change "Klingon" to "Gorgon"



In that case, case closed, and thank you for your help, naate.

kvn8907 wrote:Huh? I just tried posting, but the forum said I had 'cia lis' in my post and threw it away. So I wrote it again, saved it to notepad, and it still did it. It turns out that the word "so cial ist" was triggering the spam filter, because it has ci al is in it.

We apologize for the inconvenience, it's just one of our(rather harsh) ways to combat spam(which always comes from recently-joined members and guests). For the record, most browsers remember the text in forms if you hit "Back", regardless whether it was submitted or not, so if the forum trashes your post, you could try going back via the browser command, in order to spare you the trouble of rewriting the post.


Glad to hear you found your game!


*cialis

We also hate socialists.

have u tried Wing commander it is a very cool game.