When I was a kid, I was introduced to computer games early on because my dad does a lot of computer-related stuff. Somewhere there’s an old 4×6 photo of me sitting in a small pink chair on top of a regular adult chair so I could reach the computer. (Age of dial-up internet… ah… fun times).
It started with games like Wacky Wheels and Commander Keen, acquired on a small floppy disk (you know… the save icon?) Another fun note: the galactic alphabet used in Commander Keen is seen again when you’re enchanting items in Minecraft. I had an absolutely fun moment of going wait… I recognize those symbols!
Anyhow, once I got a little older, one of the games I absolutely loved was Outpost, a 1990s Windows 3.1 game.
Goal of the game?
Colonize a distant planet after Earth gets destroyed by an asteroid, and rebuild civilization to the point where you can launch back out into space.
The game was near impossible to beat. 😅
Part of that, I think, was because I was a kid, who didn’t realize until later that there was a helpful manual that told you what each building did. (Or why all those buildings underground kept turning into Red Light Districts when morale was low. Agh! I needed that laboratory!
(I didn’t realize until much later what a red light district was).
The other part, as it turns out, was that the game was actually released incomplete, and certain rather important functions for building up to a spacefaring age had been left out. If I recall, some editions of the game actually did have just enough to complete the game later on.
Since I think I beat the game once (and only once), I’m guessing I might have been playing the incomplete version. (I beat it on a DOSBox version with wonky colors and no sound because it wasn’t the most compatible with Windows XP but I was determined to play it again).
But everything had to be lined up just right in order to get that ending.
I usually died long before I ran into the issue of reaching the space technologies.
And from this game, I memorized two specific lines from the AI. “Don’t panic,” and “The people hate you, Commander.”
*Annoyed glare at computer.*
Rarely did I get the third line, “The people love you, Commander.”
Eventually, I moved on to other games, though the craving to play Outpost pops up every once in a while. Building tunnels and redundant oxygen systems. Dying within a few turns of starting the game because of choosing the wrong star systems. Old-school music that was catchy but not the best quality…
Imagine my surprise when, a few years ago I went to a local concert playing music from The Planets, and suddenly heard, in full symphonic glory, the primary background song of Outpost.
What?!?! 🥹
Apparently “Mars” was the song they chose for the game, and I’d had it ingrained in my head. I knew I was supposed to be looking for sections pulled for the Star Wars movies from the concert, but Outpost?
I was a happy camper.
You can find a few play-throughs on Youtube if you’re curious about what it sounded like in Outpost. In the meantime… I don’t think I’m quite ready to fight with DOSBox to get the game back up and running.
But the urge to go build a space colony may yet again return…
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None of my space stories are published yet, so no links to point to this time. (But there’s a couple waiting for revisions!)
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Happy reading and writing!
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 