Released in 1987 for the Atari ST, Oids is probably the least known of FTL’s titles. The enhanced Atari ST version of Sundog Oids Sundog was supposed to be a trilogy, but when Webster left these sequels never materialized. Sundog: Frozen Legacy was picked, at the time, as one of the 15 best computer games of all times by Popular Computing. While the Apple II version wasn’t a big commercial success, the Atari ST version, released in 1985, would become the best selling title in the computer’s first year. To fill the hole Holder brought in Doug Bell and Andy Jaros, who would end up enhancing the game’s graphics for the upcoming release for the new 16-bit Atari ST computer. ![]() Webster, with the possibility of another project of this caliber, resigned from FTL after the release of version 2.0. The scalable interface used a series of expanding and contracting views – something we would see years later in games like Sim City. ![]() Inspired by the Apple Lisa user interface, it was a unique and a technical achievement for its time. The game would use a layered windowing system called ZoomAction. The Apple II release of Sundog published by Accolade Webster did almost all of the programming for the Apple II version, a daunting task for a game of this complexity. Another problem is that the SunDog is in need of repair, and you’re broke. For one thing, you have no idea where the colony is, and your first job is to find it. When you deliver everything and the colony is fully grown, the ship is yours to keep. Every so often you’ll also find members of the colony frozen in cold sleep, or “cryogens” (thus the name of the game) on various planets. Your mission is to pick up goods for the colony to help it grow. SunDog starts out with you onboard the star-freighter the Sundog, a ship left to you by your unknown uncle, along with the ship is also his last contract to make deliveries to a religious colony on the planet of Jondd. Webster and Holder co-designed FTL’s first release, SunDog: Frozen Legacy, a space trading, combat and exploration/adventure game with CRPG character mechanics, first released for the Apple II in the spring of 1984. He’d written columns for both The Space Gamer and Computer Gaming World and owned a large number of sci-fi/role-playing board games. Webster was a dedicated player and amateur game designer. Holder had been developing software tools to help assist writers fr some time, but a conversation in 1982 with an old friend from college, Bruce Webster, would be the spark that ignited FTL. FTLįTL Games (Faster Than Light) was started by Wayne Holder in 1982 as a games development division under his software company Software Heaven. ![]() Though it may seem like the story of FTL is almost entirely the story of Dungeon Master, an earlier game, originally for the Apple II, showed the level which FTL was able to perform on. In the grand scheme of computer gaming history, where significant people, games, and companies from bygone eras still to this day earn fame and fortune, FTL might really be one of the ’80s gamings unsung heroes – with its short lifespan, and the way it faded into the dusty corners of history after only a handful of releases.
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