Praise for CGA Trek
"An absolute masterpiece... I hate to say it may be the best thing you've ever done" -- SpaceGameJunkie
"Pure fun, that's gold these days" -- fernadolv3
"wow, the dialog, this is amazing, way beyond expectations" -- best luke
Introduction
Cyan Alert! Set your eyeballs on stunned because it's time for CGA Trek!
CGA Trek is a homage to the "Trek" game (sometimes known as Star Trek, Super Star Trek, Space War or Starkill) that originated on mainframe computers in the 1970s, inspired by the innovative PC version from the late 1980s called EGA Trek. Like Riker and his transporter clone Thomas, or Tuvix, it is simultaneously a demake and remake.
It aims to be a faithful recreation of the basic gameplay but in a modern, accessible, fun package. I wanted something with strong art direction so I picked the austere and beautiful 4-colour CGA palette of early 1980s computing.
Features
Your very own starship equipped with many systems, including teletransmatporters.
The alpha quadrant as an 8x8 grid containing 64 sectors.
Each sector is an 8x8 grid of locations
Starbases (general, research and weapon depots)
Planets (with away missions)
Enemy ships
A scenario designer with five difficulty settings
Authentic 1980s computer voice
Great 8bit music
Beautiful, beautiful CGA graphics - 4 colours - using the light magenta/light cyan palette at 320x200 resolution.
A bunch of surprises for fans of the genre.
Let me know in the Steam forum if there are any accessibility tweaks I can provide to make this a great experience for you.
History
In 1971, Mike Mayfield wrote the game "Star Trek" for his local university's computer on punch tape. The game was designed to be played via a printer instead of screen.
In the 1970s, with no hard drives or floppy discs, code was often distributed in magazines and other publications. Hobbyists would read the code off paper and type it into their computer to play it.
It was this way that the code for "Star Trek" spread quickly in the computer world with variations and implementations popping up all over the place. One programmer wrote in the introduction to their version that "there have probably been more versions of this game written than any other as there is probably at least one version around for every type of computer ever made."
While the owners of the original 1960s Star Trek show gave written permission for those fan games to use elements of the TV series well into the 1970s (a decade when Star Trek was kept alive by the growing fandom) by the 1980s they appeared to have reduced this support. Jerry Pournelle (co-author of the excellent book The Mote In God's Eye - apparently also a computer nerd!) wrote in 1984 that his version of the game was renamed Star Kill after they "received a polite but insistent letter". (He also praised a variant of the game called "Star Fleet I", the sequel to which is available on Steam and is still being updated this this day).
Originally written in Sigma 7 BASIC, Trek was rewritten in many other dialects of BASIC such as HP BASIC and other languages such as FORTRAN.
It was a FORTRAN version of "Star Trek" that inspired Nels Anderson to write a version for the PC in around 1989. He upgraded the plain ASCII graphics to take advantage of new 16 colour hardware made by IBM called the Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA). EGA was a big upgrade over IBM's earlier Color Graphics Adapter (CGA) which effectively* did 4 colours.
The Anderson version of the game was titled "EGA Trek" and spread worldwide in the early 1990s as a great example of shareware. EGA Trek is often regarded as the best version of the genre.
While EGA was a big technological upgrade over CGA at the time, in some ways CGA has aged better. Its "weird" colour restrictions have given it a lot of personality compared to the more "normal" palettes of EGA. Additionally, the greater restrictions of CGA (fewer colours, lower resolution) can provide a lot of fun to game developers looking for a challenge. I hope you enjoy CGA Trek.
With massive apologies and much love to Nels Anderson.
* the actual colour capabilities of CGA and EGA are too complicated to fully summarise here but are popularly considered to be 4 vs 16 colours.
🕹️ Partial Controller Support
🎮 Full Controller Support
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[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45829097/4d8f6bf2c23fe362721e5b34fee62d676c040d92.png\"][/img]
Hi everyone,
Welcome to another big update for CGA Trek. I\'m in no hurry to implement every feature every Trek-like game has ever had but as I play CGA Trek I\'m enjoying adding stuff that I am certain improves the feel of the game.
Most of these changes have already gone live over the last month but I\'m batching the news in one big news item.
The big changes since the last update are:
Enemy wessels now reinforce from neighbouring sectors. This makes it important to pay attention to the surrounding sectors when you pick a battlefield as what appears to be an easy kill can suddenly become a lot more complicated! As well as adding a bit of strategic decision making to your play, it also alters the tactical situation. All up I\'m VERY happy with this feature (and also I think it looks so cute when they warp in).
[/*]I\'ve reworked how energy usage is calculated (eg by warp engines, shields and the energy converter). This enables me to balance the game a lot better. The daily energy use is now displayed at the top of the screen. To keep the UI clean I created a custom 4px tall typeface called CGA Luke 4px Regular just for this game that I\'m also making freely available under the Creative Commons.
[/*]Players can now partially repair a system. With the addition of time limits last update, it became a lot more interesting to have this feature in the game, a staple of Trek-likes like WinTrek. It lets powerful players really eke out a bit more time during their runs.
[/*]LOTS more (see below)
[/*]
[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45829097/68707e157568424509696951af2a0d57717ef8fe.gif\"][/img]
I am massively unable to get the word out about my Classyk games. CGA Trek is sitting on 6 reviews. Liberation is on 20 reviews. Cell Sword is on 5 reviews, Alexander the Great had conquered a quarter of the world\'s population by the time he was 32 and here I am hounding strangers for Steam reviews and wishlists. There is no dignity in art but I love it anyway. I will get better at promotion, I promise!
So far the \"heat\" for my next game, Low Earth Orbit Adventures, is also low temperature (near absolute zero actually). I don\'t really know how to change the situation but any reviews, wishlists or sharing my games with your friends really helps! I\'d love to keep making games.
Low Earth Orbit Adventures is shaping up as a neat little game and I hope to have a demo out pretty soon hehehe
[dynamiclink href=\"https://store.steampowered.com/app/3984420/Low_Earth_Orbit_Adventures/\"][/dynamiclink]
Regards,
Luke
Changelog:
add: enemies can reinforce from a nearby sector depending on several factors
[/*]add: custom Alert screens based on CGA palette
[/*]add: Option to slow down message life
[/*]add: enemies vent when damage is terminal
[/*]add: display daily energy cost next to energy
[/*]add: new custom font - CGA Luke 4px Regular
[/*]add: SFX for energy replenished
[/*]add: SFX for torpedoes replenished
[/*]add: SAM barks for different alert colours
[/*]add: first reinforcement tutorial
[/*]add: SFX for enemy warp sound
[/*]add: partial repairs
[/*]add: shake ship on torpedo impact
[/*]add: partial controller support
[/*]add: reset to message duration in settings
[/*]add: option to have messages slide in from top
[/*]
change: refactor way energy is calculated
[/*]change: refactor way date is incremented
[/*]change: docking at stations takes 1.0, research stations 0.7 and weapons depots 0.3
[/*]change: prevent contrast slider going to 0
[/*]change: restructure to allow more missions
[/*]change: new CGA palette defaults
[/*]change: re-balance impossible
[/*]change: re-balance hard
[/*]change: re-balance medium
[/*]change: novas do more damage up close but less further away (making creating novas a more valid tactic)
[/*]change: rework engineering screen to make it more like the other screens
[/*]change: entering warp now costs 50 energy no matter the distance
[/*]change: 10% change of warp engine damage at warp 7
[/*]change: damaged shields allow through damage
[/*]
fix: keyboard arrow navigation in menu
[/*]fix: stations not destroyed when said they were
[/*]fix: enemies on zero energy firing
[/*]fix: spelling mistake in word \"kindness\"
[/*]fix: when time limit hits zero while in warp, option buttons become available
[/*]fix: hide time limit when time limit is disabled
[/*]fix: prevent warp to current sector
[/*]fix: energy flashing when low was weird
[/*]
Minimum Setup
- OS: Ubuntu 22.04+ or SteamOS
- Processor: 2+ Cores. 2+ GHzMemory: 2 GB RAM
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: 2 GB VRAM. Vulkan 1.0 compatible hardware
- Storage: 1 GB available space
Recommended Setup
- OS: Ubuntu 22.04+ or SteamOS
- Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 or betterMemory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: 4 GB VRAM. NVIDIA GTX 970 or better
- Storage: 1 GB available space
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