The Cosmic Balance

The Cosmic Balance is a tactical space game from Strategic Simulations, the company that spent the eighties turning wargames and strategy into computer software. The 1982 date on this entry belongs to the original release; the Commodore 64 version filed here appeared during the machine's first years on the market.

Ship construction is the title's distinguishing feature. The player first designs a vessel, deciding on armour, engines, shields and weapon placement, and only then takes it into battle. Every choice costs something: heavier armament means a slower ship, better armour leaves less energy for the guns. Designs can be saved and reused, so the player gradually builds a collection of hulls and tests them against one another.

Combat is fought from a top-down view and is deliberately slow. It is not about pulling a trigger but about turning the hull so its stronger side faces the enemy, managing power and reading the opponent's manoeuvre. A badly designed ship loses the fight before it ever reaches firing range.

That combination of engineering and tactics was ahead of its time. On a computer with a few dozen kilobytes of memory it amounted to a surprisingly deep game, and the same principle keeps returning in new forms to this day. The graphics are minimal, a few lines and symbols, because the machine's power went into calculating movement and hits.

One more thing worth knowing: this title runs directly in your browser from the site, so designing your own warship takes nothing more than a click.