[HN Gopher] Microsoft Space Simulator (Or, Charles Guy's Galaxy ...
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       Microsoft Space Simulator (Or, Charles Guy's Galaxy in a Box)
        
       Author : doppp
       Score  : 68 points
       Date   : 2021-01-15 17:24 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.filfre.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.filfre.net)
        
       | SloopJon wrote:
       | I don't remember this game at all, but it sounds like it would
       | have been a fun follow up to _The Halley Project_ , which was
       | kind of a scavenger hunt through the solar system.
        
       | netsharc wrote:
       | Ha, I had this game when I was a kid. There was a section in the
       | manual about pointing your spacecraft towards a star 26 light
       | years away, set its speed to the speed of light, and letting your
       | PC run for 26 years, it would simulate the trip accurately.
       | 
       | And here we are, 26 years later...
       | 
       | Edit: well, the download has the manual as a PDF, it doesn't
       | mention "26 light years", ah, how my memory deceived me!
        
       | 1610739545 wrote:
       | Charles Guy was my uncle. I've done research myself but this post
       | has details I did not know and quotes I have never heard. It was
       | very enjoyable to read.
        
         | ido wrote:
         | What a small world (internet?)
         | 
         | Do you have any interesting anecdotes about your uncle?
        
           | 1610739545 wrote:
           | He died when I was 10 or 11 and lived across the country so I
           | didn't have as much time with him as I would have liked. The
           | times when he came home to see the family were always
           | pleasant. He and my father were an entertaining pair. We
           | visited him once or twice in California after he was
           | diagnosed with cancer. He definitely passed his interest in
           | computers and astronomy on to me along with his taste for
           | electronic and industrial music. The first computer I had to
           | myself was passed down from him. I still have a framed
           | panorama of the milky way galaxy he gave me.
        
       | dade_ wrote:
       | A bit related:
       | 
       | During the holiday season I wanted to spend some time playing a
       | game the supports Ubuntu & Windows and found Surviving Mars. I
       | hadn't played a game like it since Outpost, but I am impressed
       | the quality and found it enjoyable to play:
       | https://www.paradoxplaza.com/surviving-mars/SUSM01GSK-MASTER...
        
         | pseudosavant wrote:
         | It looks like Surviving Mars is on Xbox Game Pass. Downloading
         | now. Thanks!
         | 
         | https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surviving-mars/bxc7cs90nx6...
        
         | ethbr0 wrote:
         | Oh, Paradox... I'll have to give this one a try! I haven't had
         | that itch rightly scratched since staring at tiny videos
         | crammed onto the _Outpost_ CD-ROM and writing the detailed
         | narratives in my head.
         | 
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outpost_(1994_video_game)
         | 
         |  _Edit_ : I forgot how epic the intro was. Especially for 1994
         | DOS. Did not forget the music.
         | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NtfmvwyHuNs&t=21
         | 
         | It's a shame _Dune II_ pivoted the market to RTS or bust by the
         | time _Outpost II_ came out.
        
       | ZachS wrote:
       | If you'd like to play the game :-)
       | 
       | https://archive.org/details/msdos_Microsoft_Space_Simulator_...
        
       | t0mbstone wrote:
       | Whoa... opened the article and saw the screenshots and had a
       | total nostalgia flashback. Microsoft Space Simulator was one of
       | the only "video games" that my parents let me have, back in the
       | day.
        
       | egypturnash wrote:
       | _Yet no one else has given you a spacecraft and then just set you
       | loose to go explore the natural wonders of our galaxy with it,
       | thereby giving you a more embodied sort of window onto our
       | staggeringly magnificent and terrifyingly immense universe than
       | any planetarium can hope to create._
       | 
       | Honestly this was what I loved about the initial version of _No
       | Man 's Sky_. It didn't have any pretense to realism but it really
       | worked well as a non-game about just being a tiny speck in a
       | galaxy much, much larger than you can really begin to comprehend.
       | 
       | Every update added more "gameplay" and made the player feel more
       | important. And I guess that's more of what people want. But there
       | was a magic to the pre-patch NMS that it's lost, and it's pretty
       | much what that quote describes.
        
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       (page generated 2021-01-15 23:01 UTC)