Game #232: Space

Space I, also known simply as Space was published by Edu-Ware in 1979 for the Apple II. It is a text-based role-playing/strategy simulation game inspired by the Traveller tabletop RPG.

It involves a quite lengthy character creation process through military service branches, skill development, space exploration, trading, combat, and more. An expansion called Space II was released in 1979, but Edu-Ware later replaced both with their Empire trilogy due to legal issues. The creator of Traveller, Game Designers Workshop, successfully sued Edu-Ware and the game was pulled from the market. A licensed version of Traveller entitled MegaTraveller was released in 1990. Edu-ware would come back with an original trilogy called Empire between 1981 and 1984 which were released for the Apple II.

I spent a good amount of time trying to find an original box or cover art to show to you and I could not locate any pictures or scans of original packaging. Early Edu-Ware titles from 1978-1980 often used very basic, low-budget packaging such as Ziploc bags, photocopied manuals, and minimal, if any, artwork. Broderbund and Sierra would later publish more elaborately illustrated boxes and documentation.

The main menu gives you an option of Characters and then four adventures to choose from. You cannot play any of the adventures until after you have successfully created a character. In the character creation process you first choose which branch of the military you’d like to serve in: navy, army, marines, scouts, merchant marines, “other services”, or you can choose a random draft of the above.

The game then assigns you attributes in strength, dexterity, intelligence, education, social standing, health, and a psychological evaluation as well.

Once the character is created you then go through four years of rigorous training. You get to select where you’d like to focus your training at the beginning of each year and once the year is over you can then review the results of your training.

It took a good half hour before I had a character that I was happy with or that merely survived. The character creation process doesn’t always end well. I had one character die during training, and my second character had a weak heart and suffered a fatal heart attack during my four years of training.

My fourth character ended up having pretty good attributes and there were no physical or psychological problems. My third character was a hot mess. He did not respond to leadership well AND was also afraid of enclosed spaces. I did save that character but went back to the drawing board once again. Once you are done with the character creation process you are discharged to civilian life. You then return to the main menu and you can now choose one of the four adventures that are available.

The five adventures: First Blood, Defend, Explore, Trader, and High Finance couldn’t be more further apart from one another in terms of the skills that they focus on as well as the outcomes. I decided to choose the first scenario, First Blood, and in this scenario you choose your weapon, armor, mode of attack (close combat or ranged) and your attack speed. Once your choices are complete you are then faced with an opponent and taken through a series of battle rounds. Rolls for the outcome are hidden and appear to be based on your skills and training.

My fourth character, Ben Nova, successfully completed that mission after which I was once again returned to the Main Menu.

In the second adventure you are defending a planet and simply have to choose different commands that are presented to you as choices.

In all honesty, the hardest part of Space was the character creation process. Each scenario or adventure never took longer than about 20 minutes of my time to complete.

I was most interested in the High Finance scenario because I work full time in the stock market. It was indeed a portfolio building investment game that seemed completely random. I think I accrued almost 2 million dollars and then easily became bored with it. You could keep playing until your heart’s content.

I also thought exploring planets might be a lot of fun but once again all of the events seemed random and very quickly grew tedious.

Space does have a lengthy character creation process and in the first scenario it did sport statistic driven combat but it barely qualifies as a computer role-playing game in my opinion. The game is listed though, in more than one source, as a CRPG and thus the completist in my had to go back and cover this offering from 1979.

Next up on the docket is a return to 1985 and a game entitled: Adventure: Only the Fittest Shall Survive.

Until next time……