During my teen-age years I spend huge amounts of time on my Apple ][ playing SunDog. Of all the games I have played, that is the one that I remember most vividly and miss most deeply. Considering the severely limited platform, it was an absolutely amazing game. What set SunDog apart was that it was very open-ended and exquisitely detailed. You felt like you could do anything, and try novel approaches to problems. Every now and then I would have a flashback to that game, and would look around the web for something similar. I have never found anything that fills the void that game did.
Several years ago, I discovered that one of the original authors ([Bruce Webster]) was starting a project to rewrite SunDog in Java: [SunDog Resurrection]. However, it seems that the project has gone nowhere.
In my searches for similar games, I have tried a couple...
Space Trader
[Space Trader] is a great game for PalmOS
? which has some similarities to
SunDog.
Pros:
- large universe
- the ability to see commodity prices in nearby systems
- several types of ships to choose from
- the ability to hire crewmen
- different technology levels
Cons:
- No coherent backstory. Why are different systems at different technology levels? How are you trading with them? Who set up the jump gates?
- Star-system granularity (cannot explore solar systems, planets, cities).
- Limited customizability of ships
The author is working on a follow-up game called [Picoverse] which looks like it would be incredible!
Vendetta Online
I discovered
[Vendetta Online], a multi-player game, which at first glance seemed to not only fill the void left by
SunDog, but added the ability to interact with other people. I liked it well enough to become a paying customer.
Pros:
- Fantastic graphics
- Very detailed backstory.
- Multi-player
- A variety of ships available.
- Asteroid mining
- Game is constantly being improved and expanded
Cons:
- Heavy emphasis on combat (which I am terrible at).
- Death is nearly meaningless.
- Ship repairs are free and instant.
- No fuel (I don't care how futuristic it is, the laws of thermodynamics still apply)
- Limited customizability of ships
- Ships are too cheap
- Ship damage has no effect other than smoke coming from your ship.
- Trivial things like docking and catching cargo take too much effort (tractor beams?)
Freelancer
I briefly booted my laptop into Windows (ack!) to try out this game. It's been a while, but as I recall, the graphics were great, but it lacked realism and depth.
I've got to talk about
SunDog itself.
Pros:
- Damage to your ship was "real" (ships systems stopped working and you had to repair)
- Depth of play (navigating between stars down to walking along the street)
- Realism (you had to eat, repair ship systems, planets moved, &c.)
- Innovative interface.
Cons (most of these can be attributed to the limited platform it was on):
- Only one type of ship
- No "trading computer" to keep track of prices
- Small universe.
- Street fighting was near impossible (I always got killed).
- Walking/driving around was tedious.
Links
![[Home]](/logo.png){kind=logo}
