Iron Seed
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Iron Seed | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Channel 7 |
| Publisher(s) | Softdisk |
| Designer(s) | Jeremy Stanton |
| Engine | Custom |
| Platform(s) | MS-DOS |
| Release date | 1994 |
| Genre(s) | Real-time strategy, RPG |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | Home Of the Underdogs 'TOP Dog' |
| Media | 3.5" disk |
| System requirements | x86 CPU |
| Input methods | Mouse |
Iron Seed is a 1994 DOS computer game, developed and published by Channel 7. It is a real-time strategy, science fiction, space game in which the player must develop the strength and knowledge necessary to unite the free worlds, and defeat the alien horde that threatens the galaxy.
Contents |
[edit] Description
The player begins with a single ship and a chosen crew. Numerous randomly generated planets and options guarantee great replayability, and numerous ship designs and crew selection allow for different playing styles. Research, exploration, and diplomacy, are essential elements for success. New ships, new upgrades, and ancient artifacts help the player in their efforts. Combat can be both in the form of random encounters or planned for by the player.
This space strategy game is similar to the seminal Starflight series in its breadth and scope, but is more focused on the strategic and tactical issues than that classic. The story and art were created by Jeremy Stanton. The music was composed by the well-known computer musician Andrew Sega.
[edit] Gameplay
The user interface is very well made. By number of star systems and planets you can explore, Iron Seed is among the richest space exploration games and rivals the legends of this genre such as Starflight and Star Control series. The crew of your ship will be able to research overwhelming number of technologies, construct many different ship ugrades and take apart the obsolete devices to use their parts in construction. Examination of planets is very similar to Star Control, but much more detailed. The unique feature of this game lies in the fact that crew members are not living persons but copied personalities of living persons. You will be able to adjust, save and load their personalities to get the best results from them. In a bizarre change of pace from most games with an interstellar setting, your ship is NOT capable of faster than light travel. Traveling between stars takes years of in-game time (thus the need for a crew of ageless cybernetic "encodes") and planets can actually alter geological state in the course of the game.
[edit] Technical
The game was written using a buggy version of Borland Turbo Pascal so it won't run on modern operating systems. To fix this bug, the EXE file must be patched with PatchCRT, a small free tool provided by Kennedy Software & Systems Ltd. It can be downloaded for free at this location: http://www.kennedysoftware.ie/patchcrt.htm
Even with the CRT patch, the game will crash if you move the pointer to the edge of the screen.
Alternatively, DOSBox, a program found at http://dosbox.sourceforge.net , will run Iron Seed without crashes, although performance seems to vary depending on which version of DOSBox is being used.
For whatever reason, the game was shipped with a noticeable number of bugs and unintended features, ranging from the player's mining robots causing the game to leak memory and eventually crash, to factories producing nothing but "Useless Junk" every so often, to extremely simple "quests" (Hello. Our ship is damaged. Can we please have a [X Component]) which were impossible in practice owing to the game not offering the relevant option. Most of these were not game-breakers but were frustrating and considerably steepened the learning curve of the game. Most of these problems have since been fixed by the available unofficial patches.
[edit] External links
- Iron Seed 2 Site (free download of Iron Seed, unofficial patches for Iron Seed and the Ironseed 2 forum.)
- Interview on development of Ironseed 2
- Iron Seed at MobyGames
