Space Games
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MS-DOS - USA - 1st Edition. |
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Space Games is a shovelware compilation video game of four science fiction-themed video games published by Keypunch Software for MS-DOS on 1986-07-08. The games included in the package were very dated, and the packaging was very low-quality, the back of the box even had the wrong screenshot on it. The menu system was also a mess written in BASIC and filled with typos.
Games
This compilation contains four games. Because Keypunch was essentially a pirate organization, they sourced the games from free sources like magazines and BBSes and stripped the names of the developers. Any unnecessary documentation or credits were removed. Prior to shipping, the games were re-titled, both to prevent the developers from finding out their programs were stolen, and also to make the buyers think they were buying something more impressive than what the box contained.
| Title | Notes |
|---|---|
| Space Trek | Called "Space Trek" on the box and menu, but "StarTrak" on the file name. It's just the 1982 BASIC game, NewTrek. |
| Invaders | Renamed version of the 1985 Space Commanders II, a Space Invaders clone. |
| Alien | The 1982 text adventure, Alien with the title screen altered to make it look like Keypunch wrote it. |
| Lunar Landing | Bruce Guthrie's clone of Lunar Lander released in 1982. |
Personal
| Own? | No. |
|---|---|
| Won? | See individual game pages. |
My cousin had this and several other Keypunch titles for his Tandy 1000 in the late 1980s. I wasn't as impressed by this collection of games as Lunar Landing was over in a few seconds, and Invaders was just a remake of Space Invaders, which I was already bored with, and Space Trek seemed too random to be enjoyable. Although Alien was just a dull text adventure, I found it interesting, and mapped much of the game out, but gave up at some point. Decades later, I beat it.
Media
Box Art
The art is interesting and fits the theme.
Play Online
Download
Since Keypunch probably never secured the rights to these game in the first place, and has long since gone out of business, I'm making the software available here. The two-disk package is combined here in a single archive.
Links
