stormlord
05-07-2011, 11:50 PM
Steve Barcia was a game programmer and company lead at Simtex Studios Inc in the late 80's and early to mid 90's. I come to find out who he was because I stumbled on a link about Star Lords, the game prototype that preceded and later became Master of Orion, a 4X space-strategy game released in late 1993. 4X is a term used in the games industry that stands for eXplore eXpand eXterminate eXploit and is commonly (if only?) used in the space strategy genre.
I've been enjoying Star Lords lately so here's a link about it:
http://moo3.quicksilver.com/game/starlords.html
The download link is old, but here's a working one on the same domain:
http://www.fileplanet.com/44749/40000/fileinfo/Star-Lords-Demo
The game is fully playable. All that you need to run it is a working copy of DosBox, which you can google, or download here:
http://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1
Install it. Make folders on your harddrive, like this:
c:\dosgames\
c:\dosgames\starlords
Extract the starlords.zip contents to c:\dosgames\starlords.
Run dosbox from the programs menu.
If I'm right, a prompt should show up. Type the following:
"mount c c:\dosgames -freesize 1000"
"c:\"
"cd starlo~1"
"setup"
Follow the options and try to setup your audio hardware correctly.
Exit and type the following at the prompt:
"start"
That should startup starlords to the title screen.
Alternatively, you can change the dosbox config file. It should be in one of the program menu(s). On my installation, it's DOSBox-0.74->Options->DOSBox 0.74 Options. Just paste the following at the end of the file and save:
"mount c c:\dosgames -freesize 1000"
"c:\"
Type "exit" to quit DosBox. You can set DosBox to fullscreen by pressing/holding alt and hitting enter.
The rest you'll have to learn on your own. DOSBox is an amazing application that opens you up to thousands of amazing games. Make it so!
Steve Barcia also made a prototype named Master of Magic that was similarly refined and commercially sold by MicroProse Software. There's a multitude of excellent dos games that windows users are unaware of. For a good review of what's out there, go here:
http://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/dos/
Here's an additional link for Master of Magic:
http://www.homeoftheunderdogs.net/game.php?id=687
Wiki link for Steve Barcia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Barcia
I hope you enjoy learning about old games. I do. I hope you do too. There're many great treasures to find.
I've been enjoying Star Lords lately so here's a link about it:
http://moo3.quicksilver.com/game/starlords.html
The download link is old, but here's a working one on the same domain:
http://www.fileplanet.com/44749/40000/fileinfo/Star-Lords-Demo
The game is fully playable. All that you need to run it is a working copy of DosBox, which you can google, or download here:
http://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1
Install it. Make folders on your harddrive, like this:
c:\dosgames\
c:\dosgames\starlords
Extract the starlords.zip contents to c:\dosgames\starlords.
Run dosbox from the programs menu.
If I'm right, a prompt should show up. Type the following:
"mount c c:\dosgames -freesize 1000"
"c:\"
"cd starlo~1"
"setup"
Follow the options and try to setup your audio hardware correctly.
Exit and type the following at the prompt:
"start"
That should startup starlords to the title screen.
Alternatively, you can change the dosbox config file. It should be in one of the program menu(s). On my installation, it's DOSBox-0.74->Options->DOSBox 0.74 Options. Just paste the following at the end of the file and save:
"mount c c:\dosgames -freesize 1000"
"c:\"
Type "exit" to quit DosBox. You can set DosBox to fullscreen by pressing/holding alt and hitting enter.
The rest you'll have to learn on your own. DOSBox is an amazing application that opens you up to thousands of amazing games. Make it so!
Steve Barcia also made a prototype named Master of Magic that was similarly refined and commercially sold by MicroProse Software. There's a multitude of excellent dos games that windows users are unaware of. For a good review of what's out there, go here:
http://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/dos/
Here's an additional link for Master of Magic:
http://www.homeoftheunderdogs.net/game.php?id=687
Wiki link for Steve Barcia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Barcia
I hope you enjoy learning about old games. I do. I hope you do too. There're many great treasures to find.