IntroductionThe Early Years 1980-1992The Modern Years 1993-Present

By Bruce Geryk
Designed by Katie Bush

Space may be the final frontier for some, but in computer games, it was one of the first uncharted territories to be conquered. Along with adventure games, space empire games have been around since the very beginning of computer gaming. From the earliest days of DECWAR (a space empire game that ran on DEC mainframes) and Starweb (a play-by-email game that used a mainframe computer to resolve turns), the idea of colonizing space provided the open-ended environment that let early game designers develop their own fictional universes without historical or technological limitations. As hardware and game design evolved, the space empire game provided a solid framework for developers to experiment with their designs as well as elaborate on popular science-fiction universes. Some of the earliest space games, like Mtrek by VGA Planets designer Tim Wisseman, were simple mainframe ASCII games that used well-known science-fiction themes as the basis for strategy games.

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Alpha Centauri is essentially a terrestrial game that involves no planet hopping.
This feature chronicles science-fiction-themed games that are often referred to as "4X" games: 4X, meaning explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. Starting with a limited number of resources, you colonize new planets and star systems, build ships, research technologies, and spread your influence across the galaxy. Because this genre traditionally focuses on space exploration, we've excluded Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Alien Crossfire, since they're essentially terrestrial 4X games like the Civilization series--but with science-fiction themes. To fall into the space 4X category, you have to be able to go from planet to planet. Given such broad criteria, it's perhaps surprising how similar many space 4X games have been in their approach to design.

Of further note, this feature does not comprise a comprehensive listing of all space 4X games, as it's weighted more heavily toward recent games for reasons of popularity and more diversity in design. Many early space empire games, especially those on mainframes, were variations on simple text displays that you could tell apart really only through the underlying game mechanics. In the roughly 25 years since then, graphics have evolved greatly, and while the mechanics have become more complex, the interface and presentation advances have actually made the games much easier to play than most of their primitive ancestors. The next time you play a recent space empire game, think for a moment what it would be like if you had to punch through a series of text menus using a keyboard before you could get anywhere. Sometimes, graphics aren't just for show.
 

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