Star-King

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Star-King is a 1991 video game published by Spacewar Simulations Company and designed by Walker Vanning.

Contents

Gameplay

Star-King is a strategic level game in which each player starts off with a single planet and must conquer the whole play-area to win. [1] One to seven players can play, and the game features many different levels of play on a 3-D gameboard. [2] On each turn, a player can build ships and colonies and can then move the ships around the gridded play area. [3] The screen displays a row of numbers listing the order in which the tactical information is displayed. [3]

Publication history

Star-King was the first game published by the small Spacewar Simulations Company of San Rafael, California. [2]

Reception

Dave Arneson reviewed the game for Computer Gaming World , and stated that "For the same enjoyment, and less effort, one could play Avalon Hill's Galaxy on an old Apple II. By comparison, Star-King lacks the user-friendly features, entertaining sound effects, crude animation (in the results phases) and a fairly exciting play system for multi-player action that Galaxy had over ten years ago. When one considers that Galaxy was even written for a 30K machine, that makes Star-King a solid miss in this market, unless one simply must have a multi-player modem game with a steep learning curve." [3]

The book The PC Games Bible called the graphics "average". [1]

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References

  1. 1 2 Matthews, Robin; Rigby, Paul (1992). The PC Games Bible. Wilmslow, Cheshire: Sigma Press. p. 234. ISBN   1-85058-332-3 . Retrieved 2024-03-21 via Internet Archive.
  2. 1 2 "Taking a Peek". Computer Gaming World . No. 83. June 1991. p. 91. Retrieved 2024-03-21 via Internet Archive.
  3. 1 2 3 Arneson, Dave (August 1991). "Stars in My Pocket: Spacewar Simulations Company's Star-King". Computer Gaming World. Vol. 1, no. 85. p. 30.