''Galactic Attack'' is a 1980

space combat simulator A space flight simulation is a genre of flight simulator video games that lets players experience space flight to varying degrees of realism. Common mechanics include space exploration, space trade and space combat. Overview Some games in the ...

video game written by

Robert Woodhead Robert J. Woodhead is an entrepreneur, software engineer and former game programmer. He claims that a common thread in his career is "doing weird things with computers". Career In 1979 he co-founded Sirotech (later known as Sir-Tech) with N ...

for the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-mold ...

and published by the company he co-founded, Siro-Tech. It is a single-player adaptation of the game ''

Empire An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...

'' from the

PLATO Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institutio ...

mainframe network. Siro-Tech was renamed to

Sir-Tech Sir-Tech Software, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher based in the United States and Canada. History In fall 1979, Sirotech Software was founded by Norman Sirotek, Robert Sirotek and Robert Woodhead. Sirotech Software published ''Info ...

and followed-up ''Galactic Attack'' with the more commercially successful ''

Wizardry ''Wizardry'' is a series of role-playing video games, developed by Sir-Tech, that were highly influential in the evolution of modern role-playing video games. The original ''Wizardry'' was a significant influence on early console role-playing ...

'' which was inspired by the PLATO system dungeon crawl games ''Oubliette'' and ''

Moria Moria may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Moria (Middle-earth), fictional location in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien * '' Moria: The Dwarven City'', a 1984 fantasy role-playing game supplement * ''Moria'' (1978 video game), a dungeon-crawler g ...

''.

Gameplay

In ''Galactic Attack'', the player's job is to liberate the solar system from the dreaded Kazanta invaders by destroying the Kzanta's ships and bombarding the Kzanta's forces on the planets of the solar system and then beaming down armies to secure the planets. The game's framing uses the same loose ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vario ...

'' framing as Empire; the universe is two dimensional, with the user's starship placed in the center of their tactical screen. Ships have phasers which fire in a cone, with damage proportionate to distance, a limited number of torpedoes that can be in flight at any given time and which proceed in a straight line until they hit a target or time out, deflector shields, a range of warp speeds, and a limited energy supply that slowly automatically regenerates. Weapons were fired on compass bearings by typing in degree headings.

Development

''Galactic Attack'' was written with

UCSD Pascal UCSD Pascal is a Pascal programming language system that runs on the UCSD p-System, a portable, highly machine-independent operating system. UCSD Pascal was first released in 1977. It was developed at the University of California, San Diego (UC ...

Reception

Bruce F. Webster reviewed ''Galactic Attack'' in ''

The Space Gamer ''The Space Gamer'' was a magazine dedicated to the subject of science fiction and fantasy board games and tabletop role-playing games. It quickly grew in importance and was an important and influential magazine in its subject matter from the la ...

'' No. 43. Webster commented that "I recommend ''Galactic Attack'' with few reservations. If gives you far more for your money than a lot of other games costing the same. Because the difficulty level can be adjusted to a very high point, it will be a long time before you master this game." Dick Richards reviewed the game for ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through t ...

'', and stated that "As this is a real time game, it demands quick thinking — indecision can be fatal — because the computer controlled Kzinti never hesitates."

Reviews

* ''

Casus Belli A (; ) is an act or an event that either provokes or is used to justify a war. A ''casus belli'' involves direct offenses or threats against the nation declaring the war, whereas a ' involves offenses or threats against its ally—usually one ...

'' #19 (Feb 1984)Ludotique , Article , RPGGeek
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References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite web , last1=Hague , first1=James , title=The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers , url=https://dadgum.com/giantlist/

External links

Sir-Tech's catalog
from mocagh.org
Forgotten ruins: The roots of computer role-playing games: Sir-tech
from https://venturebeat.com/ 1980 video games Apple II games Apple II-only games Sir-Tech games Video games developed in the United States Single-player video games