SIMSpace

SIMSpace is a DOS shareware space simulator from 1993, and it helps to say up front what it is not. Despite the name, you never hand-fly a fighter between the stars. The whole game takes place on your ship's bridge: you face a console of screens, switches and status readouts, and you do everything with the mouse. The keyboard is barely used at all.

You work mission by mission. Space Force HQ sends the assignment, you accept it, travel to the location, handle whatever the orders require, and report back for the next one. The run ends when you are destroyed or when you fail three times, so this is not a campaign with a fixed story arc — it is a question of how many jobs you can finish on one life. There are over fifty mission types, and the package includes things you would not expect from shareware: mission and character editors, a separate lander section, and play over a modem.

The interface sets the pace. SIMSpace is not about reflexes but about reading instruments and making calls: where to go, when to fire, when to raise shields, when to abandon a job. You will meet planets, spaceports, wormholes and several kinds of hostile ships, but always at one remove, through the panel. If you want fast action you will be disappointed; if you like an interface where the ship feels like a workplace rather than a toy, it holds together better than you would guess.

The honest weakness is that same stillness. The bitmapped screens and FM audio have aged worse than period 3D, and the feature list promises a livelier game than the one you actually get. Its real interest today is as evidence of how far shareware authors reached — somebody built an entire space service at home, editors and modem play included.

On oldgame.cz the game starts straight in your browser, with no installation and no DOSBox setup.