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Tradewars

What is Tradewars?

Tradewars is a classic multiplayer game that was first released in 1984. It was one of the earliest examples of a game that could be played by multiple users over a network, and it quickly became popular among computer enthusiasts.

The game is set in space, and players take on the role of space traders who must navigate the galaxy, trading goods and resources with other players. Along the way, they must also defend themselves against pirates and other threats.

One of the reasons why Tradewars was so important to multi-user gaming is that it was one of the first games to allow players to interact with each other in real-time. This was a major breakthrough at the time, as most games were still single-player experiences.

Another reason why Tradewars has a special place in retro-computing is that it was one of the first games to be played on bulletin board systems (BBS). BBSs were a precursor to the modern internet, and they allowed users to connect to each other over phone lines and play games like Tradewars.

As summarized on the tradewars.com website:

TradeWars was among the earliest multiplayer online games

As of 2013, TradeWars has been hosted on over 21,000 different sites in 59 different countries, with some sites hosting the game continuously for over 25 years

In 1995, when there were 400 active MUD sites, TradeWars was running on over 14,000 different sites

That same year, when popular MUD LambdaMOO hosted 10,000 players, over 70,000 played TradeWars

It has been cited as an inspiration of game developers like Paul Sage (Ultima Online), Josh Johnston (Jumpgate), Eric Wang (Earth and Beyond) and Pete Mackay (Star Citizen)

TradeWars has been referenced by multiple books on the early Internet and online gaming history

Why am I talking about it now?

We could port the game to Gemini. (And by we, I mean you)

I've made videos and tutorials on how to build CGI scripts and even full applications on Gemini. Here I want to spotlight an opportunity. The entire class of early video games is ripe for adaptation to our friendly little protocol. The simplicity of input types isn't limiting. The limited displays aren't limiting either. Many of these games were playable in plain text. With the addition of Unicode drawing characters and terminal color codes our Gemini displays could become quite rich if we wanted.

But why Tradewars in particular:

Tradewars is a classic
source code is easily found
several clones have already been programmed, and modernized code repos are all over
it still has active players around the world after 40 years
it's got a space theme!
people are eager to participate in interactive things in Gemini (see: Astrobotany)
i wanna play!

Originally Published 2023-05-08 at:

gemini://tilde.team/~tomasino/journal/20230508-tradewars.gmi

If you have questions or thoughts to add please send me a link to your response.

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