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Star Trek (1971) Text Game Remake

Remake of the 1971 BASIC Star Trek Text game in Javascript.  For the Youtube show Making Games By Year.   

Play in mirror or prime timelines.

Mouse/touch friendly or classic typing interface.

Github page : 

https://github.com/MakingGamesByYear/TrekGame

Tutorial / playthrough video : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E10P0OGePSI

Development log

• Parts 1 And 2 of the Episode are done! May 31, 2020

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I loved this game when I discovered it years ago. I am happy to meet him again through this remake. Great job! :

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Retro games, abandonware, freeware and classic games for PC and Mac

Rediscovering the 1978 text-only Super Star Trek Game

The proof that you don't need fancy 3d graphics to feel like captain kirk.

Before home computers were even invented, there were people programming games. They didn't have graphics and were programmed and played on mainframes. Only lucky people had the chance to enjoy them. This is the story of one of the most famous titles, a game that made history.

Super Star Trek is an old text-only game, an early example of a turn-based space strategy sim, written in BASIC. In this game, you are the captain of the starship Enterprise, and your mission is to scout the federation space and eliminate all the invading Klingon ships. You will have to manage the ship energy carefully, use phasers and torpedoes to destroy the Klingons, and find starbases to repair damages and replenish your energy. All of this, rendered with a few characters on screen and a lot of imagination.

Super Star Trek is probably the most famous early text-only game ever created - or at least as famous as The Oregon Trail or Zork - and it inspired many other videogames. Since the code was public domain, during the years, it was changed and improved many times. There are literally thousands of versions out there. All of them are nice, but my preference goes to the classic 1978 version. It's simple but addictive like all good games should be. In fact, as you will see later, I played it a lot. But first, a bit of history.

The story of the game

According to Games of Fame , Mike Mayfield wrote the initial Star Trek game in 1971 for the Sigma 7 mainframe. The program didn't even require a screen. You could play it with a teleprinter machine: you enter the command after the prompt, and the game was printing some lines in return. How cool is that?

It's important to note that all of this happened before the first home computers were even invented. Nobody had a computer at home before the Commodore PET, the Apple II, and the TRS-80 were released in 1977.

David Ahl knew about the new version of Star Trek written by Leedom and asked permission to publish it in his new book, BASIC COMPUTER GAMES — Microcomputer edition , released in 1978. It would be the first computer book to sell 1 million copies. Some people say it's because the name Star Trek was in it. True or not, the game became hugely popular, mainly because, in the meantime, home computers had arrived. Suddenly there were thousands of machines capable of running BASIC and, consequently, BASIC computer games.

But now, let's play the game. We will see the first turns in detail.

Let's play the 1978 Super Star Trek

When the game starts, it generates the galaxy, and then it tells you the 3 main things you have to know: how many Klingons you have to destroy, how many days you have, how many starbases are present.

In this case, we have been quite lucky: 3 starbases will be useful. One of them is here, but we don't need it now.

So, let's start! You control the Enterprise using the nine commands at your disposal. They are shown below:

There are no Klingons in this quadrant, so let's use the long-range sensor scan to see if they are around. Long-range sensors show the number of ships, starbases, and stars in the 8 quadrants around you.

The number "014" for the current quadrant means there are 1 starbase and 4 stars. The number "205" for the quadrant south-east from our position means there are 2 enemy ships (and 5 stars). Let's go there.

To move, you have to enter the command NAV and then specify the course and the warp speed. The screenshot below shows a description of the directions; this feature is not in the original game - this is the only small change that I consider acceptable on the 1978 code because it improves the playability a lot.

You specify the course with a number between 1 and 9. You can also use non-integer numbers if necessary, but we want to go south-east, so we enter "8". A warp speed of 1 will allow you to go to the next quadrant.

On the new quadrant, we can see the 2 Klingon ships. As the text says, our shields are dangerously low. Better to raise them. Deflectors can be activated with the SHE command. We don't want to risk, so let's move 500 units of energy to the shields.

Now we are ready to fight. We have plenty of energy, so we will use the phasers entering PHA. Like in the TV episodes, you have to decide how much energy will be used by the phasers. Since there are 2 ships, the Enterprise will fire twice, so the power will be split, better to use a reasonable amount.

Luckily, we destroyed them, so they won't fire back. That's good.

Continuing the exploration, we end up in another quadrant with 2 enemy ships. This time we'll try to use the torpedoes.

Torpedoes don't hit automatically. We need to specify the direction. We will ask the computer to calculate the course. Enter COM to activate the ship computer. Then "2" and the computer will calculate the distance and directions of the enemies. The closest one is at distance 2.82 and direction 6.

We will try to hit the ship with a torpedo. By entering TOR and then direction 6, we will try to hit the nearest Klingon ship.

Success! The Klingon has been destroyed, but the other one hit the Enterprise. Not a big deal. With the phasers, we will beat the remaining one.

Things were going well, but they can deteriorate quite quickly. A few turns later, we enter a quadrant with 2 enemy ships. Photon torpedos have been damaged in a previous fight, and energy is scarce. A first attempt with the phasers was not enough to destroy the 2 ships. Their counterattack damages the warp engines and the computer. Without warp speed, we cannot escape, so the only chance is to destroy them with the phasers.

The next round of phasers destroys the enemies, but now energy is very low, and we need to reach the nearest starbase as soon as possible. Unfortunately, with the warp engines damaged, the maximum speed is 0.2. If the Enterprise consumes all energy, the game is over, so better to move back some power from shields to engines. We will need to avoid enemy encounters, or it's over. Once docked to the starbase, the energy goes back to the maximum level, and we can repair the damaged systems.

At this point, you should have an idea of the gameplay. As you realize, time is critical. Without a time limit, you would be able to go back to the starbases as much as you want and fight only when the Enterprise has full energy. But you can't. If you do this, time will expire. In fact, you must be very careful during exploration, trying to cover all the quadrants with the minimum amounts of movements, because time passes fast when you travel at warp speed. You cannot imagine how many times I lost a game with just 1 Klingon left, just because I needed one more turn to destroy it.

Of course, on the other side, if you risk too much, the Enterprise can be destroyed, as you can see below.

To make things complicated, there are random events. Sensors may be offline, so you are blind, and you encounter an enemy ship while you were trying to reach the starbase. If a hit damages your phasers, you only have torpedoes, but you can't see the enemy, so the only way is to ask the computer. But what if the computer goes down?

Despite its simplicity, there are really many different mechanics in this game, that combined with random factors, create surprisingly addictive gameplay.

Of course, it's possible to win, as you can see above. Once you won, you get a score based on your performance and the difficulty of the scenario. Next time, you can try to improve your score.

Ok, how can I play it?

If this article convinced you to try the game, there are plenty of options. The original Star Trek has been rewritten, changed, and improved many times. On the Internet, you will find thousands of different ports for different computers. On this website, you can download a Commodore 64 version based on the 1978 BASIC code. This is the most faithful to the classic version that I found so far.

If you are curious about the version shown in the screenshots, it's my conversion to Perl of the original BASIC code. It plays exactly like the original one, but includes some bug fixes. You can download it from my personal website .

But if you want, you can also run the 1978 BASIC code on your Mac or PC installing a BASIC interpreter. If you go to Vintage Basic you will find both the interpreter and the original program listing of Star Trek.

EDIT: Terry Newton recently wrote me to tell me that the game in the first screenshot is not the original Star Trek by Mayfield, but it's a conversion Terry made for the HP minicomputers. Thanks a lot, Terry! If you want, you can download the HP TSB BASIC code from his personal website .

That's all folks. Live long and prosper!

Related Games

Super Star Trek 1978 meets 25th Anniversary (2023)

Super Star Trek (1978)

Latest comments.

A Gre - 10 October 2020, 11:36 pm Thanks a lot! What I great read!! I'm off to play Super Star Trek now!!!

Joe Pazos - 20 January 2022, 5:46 pm My father worked as a mainframe computer supervisor at AT&T in NYC from 1973-1993. I used to go with him to work on Saturdays and play this EXACT game on a IBM mainframe that took up an entire city block. Even had him buy me a circular protractor so I could easily figure out the degrees for movement, shooting etc. Fond memories! Loved this game.

Greg Siddons - 17 April 2023, 11:49 am Great article. Such a historic game. I've spent the last 14+ months converting the original 80 column printer terminal version to the Commodore PET and C64. I've also started work on a BBC Micro (MODE 7) version too. I've added many many refinements and sympathetic enhancements. I'm still working on it and finding new ways to polish the charts and other data outputs, still with ZERO cursor control codes, just like the original terminal versions. https://electrongreg.itch.io/super-star-trek

Join the discussion! Leave your comment to this article

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Star Trek 1971 Text Game

• Download source - 41.11 KB

A Bit of History

Two years after the original series was canceled in 1969, high school senior Mike Mayfield was busy keeping the Star Trek universe alive by feeding punched paper tape into a Sigma 7 in an effort to bring the crew of the Enterprise and the Klingon Empire to life on a 10 character-per-second teletype terminal. Soon after Mike ported his game to HP BASIC, it entered the public domain. From there, early computer enthusiasts enhanced and rewrote the game for every flavor of mini and microcomputer BASIC imaginable and beyond.

I remember encountering versions of the game back in the early 80s when I was a little kid trying to learn BASIC on my IBM PCjr. Back then, computer books and magazines distributed programs in printed form. Meaning, you had to type them in to play the games. It was a pain in the ass, but the process encouraged you to tinker. It motivated you to learn to code and to tweak or even improve the programs you were entering in.

Every BASIC game book that I picked up contained some version of the Star Trek game. I recall loading it up a few times, but each time I ended up staring at the screen in utter confusion. "How the heck is this Star Trek?" I remember thinking. I couldn’t figure out how to play it.

By the time I entered high school, I had graduated from BASIC and moved on to bigger and better things like C and C++. But, on occasion, I often wondered about the Star Trek text game. What made it so popular? After learning about the history that I touched upon above, I decided to dig it up and take a second look.

After a bit of web surfing, I came across Mike Mayfield’s original port to HP BASIC. Here’s a snippet of the code:

Ah, good old line-numbered BASIC. It’s all coming back to me now. Those line numbers were there to provide targets for GOTO and GOSUB statements. But, line numbers made editing a tad difficult. It was convention to enter in line numbers that were multiples of 10. That way, as you developed the program, you could go back and insert up to 9 additional statements in between existing lines without reworking all the GOTO/GOSUB references. If you needed to insert more than 9 lines, I remember a special feature in the BASIC editor on my PCjr. It would append a zero to all line numbers and all line number references throughout the program. Meaning, you could now insert up to 99 lines. Couldn’t they just renumber the program in multiples of 10? Nah. The PCjr wasn’t powerful enough for that.

If you’re wondering about “Centerline Engineering,” it was an imaginary company that Mike Mayfield coined to give his BASIC projects a level of prominence to those reading the remarks section.

With code in hand, I really wanted to play the game. I’m sure that there are HP BASIC interpreters out there for modern machines, but what fun would that be. Before I played it, I wanted do my own port. This game was born in the hobbyist era. It was made to be reinterpreted and enhanced as it traded handed. I wanted to bring back part of those long-lost magical days of type-in programs.

My first impression of the code was "what’s with all the single letter variable names?" First, I thought it was a limitation of HP BASIC, but then I noticed the occasional 2-letter names. I guess 2 is better than 1. Everything is also in caps. Take a look at this line:

That line increments T. But, due to the caps, I feel like the code is screaming at me. ASIGN THE SUM OF T AND 1 BACK TO T DAMN IT! Also, I’m so used to writing t++ or t += x that I forgot about the expanded notation. In fact, entering 7 th grade having mastered BASIC, I found myself really confused when my math teacher introduced us to solving simultaneous equations. For instance, find the value of X in this equation:

That was the first time I was introduced to the concept of operator overloading. The equals-sign can mean variable assignment or numerical equivalence depending on the context.

Here’s a cool block of code that I noticed:

These are not executable statements. They’re string s that can be referenced in PRINT commands. The unquoted symbols get substituted with values of variables. It’s conceptually similar to C-style printf() format placeholders. I didn’t realize that BASIC offered such a rich numerical formatting notation.

As I continued to examine the source, I found some statements that didn’t make sense. For instance, even though you don’t have to declare variables before you use them, you still need to specify the dimensions of arrays. I came across some arrays that were never allocated as such. Ultimately, I decided to seek out a better basis for my port.

After a bit of Googling, I found a cleaned up version that maintained the majority of Mike Mayfield’s code. Some of it was reworked, probably to enable it to run on modern versions of BASIC. For instance, those cool IMAGE statements were dropped and replaced with sets of simpler PRINT commands. The variable names appear virtually identical, but at least they are all accounted for in this version.

Porting the Game

Next, I had to decide what language to port it to. Staring at that BASIC code reminded me that C# brought goto back into the mainstream. Would it be possible to do an exact line-by-line port from BASIC to C#? Apparently so... and the result is some of the sickest code I’ve ever keyed into a computer. Want a comparison? Here’s a segment of BASIC code:

And the C# version:

To simulate line numbers, each line starts with a label consisting of an underscore followed by a number. That works fine for GOTO , but what about GOSUB ? Examine line 2992. Subroutines were replaced with methods. That almost worked. In BASIC, you’re not forced to RETURN from subroutines. You can leave them via GOTO . That was used only in the case that the player is destroyed to send them back to the beginning of the program to start over. I replaced that GOTO with a return statement that passes a flag back to the caller. The caller inspects the flag and jumps back to the program start if need be. I also discovered that at one point, there is a GOTO that jumps into a FOR loop. C# won’t let you jump to a label in a sub-block of code. I transformed the FOR loop into a GOTO loop to make C# happy.

All the variables in the BASIC program, including the arrays, are real number type. However, in BASIC, an array and a scalar can share the same name; the interpreter is able to sort it all out. But, C# is less kind. To solve the problem, I prefixed array names with underscores. Also, arrays in BASIC are indexed from 1 instead of 0 . To compensate, I increased the length of all arrays by 1 . Index 0 is never used.

When I started testing my port, I noticed some string formatting problems. Examine the following BASIC line:

That means: Print 41 spaces followed by left-parenthesis. That was easy to translate, but the intension was to push the left-parenthesis onto the next line by letting it wrap around the console. I cleaned some of this stuff up. There are also some tables that get printed in the game. I reformatted them a bit to make them easier to read.

One other thing: notice that in this type of BASIC, # indicates not-equal-to. It took me a while to realize why they chose that symbol. # resembles ≠ .

Entering the Star Trek Universe

Now, I was ready to play the game. As I mentioned above, I never understood the rules before. Luckily, when you run the program, it gives you the option of viewing instructions. I studied them carefully. But, the only way to really understand what to do is to play the game. Here’s a walkthrough:

The game makes itself known by printing out its title. Then, it asks you if you want to view instructions. Every prompt in the game demands a number. If you hit Enter, zero is assumed. In this case, I hit Enter to skip the instructions. Next, it asks for a seed number to initialize the randomizer. This is an artifact of BASIC. It doesn’t really have an effect in C#. In BASIC, just as in C#, the randomizer could have been initialized based off the system time. If that was not an option, they should have taken advantage of the instructions prompt. When the instructions prompt appears, it could have entered a loop that timed how long it took the user to enter a value. That duration could have been used to initialize the randomizer. Again, I simply pressed Enter to skip it.

Next, it prints out my mission. I have to destroy 17 Klingon (note the game misspells it here) ships in 30 units of time with 3 starbases. Then it runs the short range scanner. The short range scanner displays the current quadrant. The game takes place in an 8×8 quadrant grid. Each row and column is numbered 1 to 8. The text on the right indicates that I am in quadrant (5,2). Each quadrant is partitioned into an 8×8 sector grid. The Enterprise is located at sector (5,4). On the quadrant display, <*> is the Enterprise. The remaining * ’s are stars. Each = mark on the top and bottom horizontal-line dividers indicates a column. If you count, you’ll find that the Enterprise is in column 5. If you count the rows, you’ll find it’s in row 4. Hence, within this quadrant, the Enterprise is in sector (5,4) as specified.

The goal is seek out quadrants containing Klingon ships and destroy them. Let’s begin by doing a long range sensor scan (option 2):

This table summarizes 9 quadrants. The center quadrant is your current quadrant. The digits indicate the number of Klingon ships, the number of starbases and the number of stars. In our quadrant, there are no Klingon ships and no starbases, but there are 5 stars. Stars act as annoying obstacles as I’ll demonstrate later on. South of us, there is a quadrant containing 1 Klingon ship. Let’s head there. But, first we need to raise shields (option 5):

It asks me how much energy I want to devote to the shields. I entered 500. If I run out of energy, I lose the game. Starbases replenish energy. They also restock photon torpedoes and repair damage. To see how much energy I have left, I’ll run a short range scan again (option 1):

Now, let’s head south. Navigation requires 2 parameters: direction and distance. It’s a polar coordinate system, but an unconventional one. Direction is specified using this:

Angle goes from 1.0 (inclusive) to 9.0 (exclusive). Note that the y-axis points downwards. So, although it appears to be a counterclockwise angle system, it’s actually clockwise. You also need to consider the aspect ratio. Each column is 3 characters wide, but each row is only 1 character high. This means that it’s not a circular coordinate system. Rather, it’s a swashed oval.

Distance is measured in warp factor units. Such a unit is equal to the length/height of a quadrant. To move to an adjacent sector, you need to move a distance of 1/8 = 0.125. I’m going to move south (angle 7.0) a distance of 1 warp factor. Navigation is option 0:

Navigation automatically runs a short range scan. Note that I moved from quadrant (5,2) to quadrant (5,3). Also, notice that is says that my warp engines are damaged. Parts of the Enterprise fail spontaneously. As you navigate around, they slowly get repaired. Let’s get a damage report (option 6):

A value of 0 indicates normal operation. Less-than 0 is damage. Greater-than 0 indicates that the component is working above normal.

The short range scan above shows a Klingon ship (the triple-plus). I’m going to use the computer to help me target the ship (option 7 followed by option 2):

Photon torpedoes are fired using the same direction and distance coordinate system as is used for navigation. The computer gave me the coordinates. Then it asks if I want to use the navigation calculator. The navigation calculator asks you to enter the coordinates of 2 quadrants and it will output direction and distance between them. I’ll press Enter to indicate I am not interested in doing this. Now, let’s fire the torpedo (option 4):

The game outputs the track of the torpedo. In this case, it hit the target. If the computer gets damaged, you have to estimate the direction of the Klingon ship yourself. It may take a few tries. The torpedo track will help you refine the direction. Also, sometimes a torpedo randomly diverts a bit from the specified direction.

Let’s get a status report using the computer (option 7, option 1):

One Klingon ship down, but my warp engine is still damaged. Let’s do a long range scan:

I want to go east. The starbase there, indicated by the center 1, can repair my warp drive. I’ll try to navigate there:

As you can see, when the warp drive is damaged, I can only move 1 sector at a time.

I managed to get over there, but now my long range scanner is damaged. Note that each time you cross a quadrant boundary, the stardate advances. I have to destroy all the Klingons in the time restriction of my mission.

The >!< symbol indicates a starbase. If I navigate next to it, the Enterprise will automatically dock at which time I’ll get everything repaired. But, if I try to navigate there, the Klingon ship will fire at me. I can’t send out a photon torpedo because of the stars. The stars will obstruct the track. Let me check on those repairs:

Nice. The Enterprise is back to normal. I’ll try using my phasers to hit the Klingons (option 3):

The Enterprise was hit. My shields dropped a small amount. The Klingon ship was damaged as well. I’ll fire again:

I fired twice, which severely lowered my energy level. Phaser strength is a measure of the distance between the Enterprise the target. It probably would have been better to navigate north for a clear path for a photon torpedo. Luckily, I can dock with the starbase to replenish my energy:

The starbase takes away all my shield energy before giving me back 3000. If the game didn’t do this, the player could get infinite shield strength by repeatedly docking and transferring energy to the shields.

Also note that I docked by crashing into the starbase. While you are within a quadrant, you can’t pass through stars, ships and starbases. However, after leaving the current quadrant, those are no longer obstacles. In fact, the positions of stars, starbases and Klingon ships within a quadrant is not determined at the start of the game. Rather, the positions are invented at the time you enter a quadrant. It creates the illusion that stars, starbases and Klingon ships can move around within a quadrant. Note that they can never move out of a quadrant.

The values you see in a long range scan are the only values tracked by the game. It doesn’t store the exact sectors of each entity within a quadrant until you enter it. On a related note, the computer can show you a table of all scanned quadrants (option 7, option 0):

Anyway, that’s the gist of the game.

So, what happens when you win?

And then it just starts over again with a new mission. The efficiency rating is a function of the time remaining. In Mike Mayfield’s original version, the time remaining was actually in minutes. As mentioned, in this version, it’s in turns.

Super Star Trek

In 1976, Creative Computing published a modified version of Mike Mayfield’s program titled Super Star Trek. It’s virtually identical to the original game. However, the menus accept 3 letter mnemonics instead of numbers. The computer offers a few more options. And, just for fun, each quadrant has a name. With those ideas in mind, I decided to code my own version of the game. I began by digging up some ancient ASCII art...

There are many subtle nuances in the original game. How often do different parts of the Enterprise malfunction? How and when do photon torpedoes randomly deviate from their specified targets? And so on. It doesn’t really matter. As I said above, this is the kind of game that deserves to be reinvented everytime it trades hands. The exact parameters of the Star Trek universe are up to the coder. For example, in my version, different parts of the Enterprise malfunction depending on how often you use them. If you rely on the computer for targeting Klingon ships too much, the computer will start to fail.

Rewriting the game brought up an interesting aspect of the BASIC version. Targeting is done using polar coordinates, but you won’t find any trigonometric functions in the BASIC code. I assume the functions were unavailable. Instead, the angle is converted into a direction vector using different ratios that approximate the trigonometric functions. That means even if you worked out perfect targeting using trigonometry, when you entered in the angle, the actual trajectory will be slightly off. Nonetheless, it’s a pretty clever math trick. As for me, I took advantage of Math.Sin() and Math.Cos() .

Finally, if you’re ready to enter the ASCII Star Trek universe and save the Federation from attacking Klingon plus-signs, download the attached source code.

• Star Trek Game History: http://www3.sympatico.ca/maury/games/space/star_trek.html
• Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_%28text_game%29
• Mike Mayfield’s Original Code: http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/startrek/STTR1
• Enhanced Version: http://newton.freehostia.com/hp/bas/TREKPT.txt
• Super Star Trek: http://www.atariarchives.org/bcc1/showpage.php?page=275

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPLv3)

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• Random Programming Competition, Summer 2008
• Best C# article of July 2008

This fan remake of a Star Trek text game from 1978 is way better than it has any right to be

The game's been overhauled with the interface from a 1992 Interplay title.

Lay in a course, Mister Sulu. You can almost hear the voice. And now, thanks to the enterprising programmer Emanuele Bolognesi, wannabe Captain Kirks can play the 1978 game Super Star Trek in a gorgeously overhauled audiovisual form.

Super Star Trek 25th is a remake / conversion of the strategy game Super Star Trek, written by Bob Leedom and David Ahl and published in the book BASIC Computer Games in 1978. Bolognesi has gone back to this title and overhauled it with the visuals and UI of the awesome 1992 Interplay game Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, following on from an earlier project that ported the 1978 original to PICO-8 (a virtual machine that mimics the 8-bit consoles of the 1980s).

"The result is Super Star Trek but played on the Enterprise's bridge," said Bolognesi. "In short, you will be playing the strategy game on the main screen of the Enterprise, but you will issue commands by interacting with Sulu, Chekov, Spock, Scott, and Uhura. Additionally, I added original voices from the TV series to make things even more nostalgic." In this blogpost the programmer goes into more detail about re-developing what was initially a text game.

This thing is amazing. I'm not a huge Trekkie these days but when I was a kid the original show was on telly all the time, and I retain enormous fondness for the vast science fiction fantasy it established. What Star Trek 25th does is take a relatively basic strategy game and make it not only playable but irresistible in its new trappings: Every one of your commands triggers a voice line from Kirk and a response from a member of the bridge crew.

The mechanics are simple but the game is fun and the vibes here are immaculate. The goal is to find and destroy a Klingon invasion fleet before time runs out, with the game randomly choosing a starting position on a 64-square grid and the Enterprise able to warp freely between them and engage Klingon ships at will. If you're in an empty sector you can use long-range sensors to scan nearby sectors, then activate the warp engines to jump around. In combat you manage the Enterprise's energy reserves, raising shields, activating phasers to attack multiple enemies, or aiming photon torpedoes.

After combat the Klingons will attack back and, perfectly, the Enterprise can be partially damaged, which means finding a Starbase to repair at and getting Uhuru to initiate docking procedures. Even more surprising is that, as the game progresses, you'll find the Klingons targeting these bases so you can't repair. There are even multiple difficulty levels: Not bad for something written 35 years ago.

The nostalgia hit with this one is enormous. It's a brilliantly realised project that takes a relatively simple older game and renders it irresistible once more with an audiovisual overhaul, all adding up to that jolt of happiness as you say "Mister Spock, full scan of the region." Time to boldly go where no man has gone before.

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Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

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Star Trek ® Text Game

You are Captain of the starship Enterprise with a mission to seek and destroy a fleet of Klingon warships that are menacing the United Federation of Planets.

The object is to destroy all the Klingon warships in the time limit without the Enterprise itself being destroyed.

Be prepared for the action, the Klingon warships never miss. When you accept the assigned Starfleet Orders, will be starting position somewhere in the galaxy which is divided into an 8x8 grid of Quadrants.

Be prepared for the action, the Klingon warships never miss!

Updated the HTML5 Graphical display with more action and improve the mobile device handling.

The Short Range Sensors have been updated surrounding a graphical view of the Enterprise, Starbases, Klingon Warships, Stars and more ... You have to play it to enjoy it.

Created this new grid layout for mobile devices making the Short Range Sensor a heads-up display while improving the action of the game.

This version was originally released as an Android Java application on the Google Play Store. An iOS version was created but never released on the Apple App Store.

This JavaScript version was created as a Progressive Web Application (PWA) for both Android and iOS bypassing the Google and Apple stores.

So many apps could be made into light-weight pure JavaScript apps using a single code-base avoiding all the moving target nonesense of my neighbors up the street at the tech cemetaries of Silicon Valley ingenuity.

Ported 1995 Java code to JavaScript, re-creating the original Star Trek Text Game into a more portable language better preserving and enabling everyone on the the Internet immediate access.

I learned of the Star Trek Text Game in 1976 when I was a kid reading thrown away terminal printouts from a garbage can at a tiny computer lab at neighboring local college where I learned the BASIC language programming, hacking onto time-sharing systems and so much more.

The original Star Trek Text Game was developed by Mike Mayfield and several of his high school friends in 1971 on main-frame computers. (see Wikipedia for more ...)

In 1986, I ported the BASIC language version to my first PC in the MS C programming language code and later ported that to the Java language in late 1995. Neither of these ports allowed everyone on the Internet to use them at this final port did to JavaScript with HTML / CSS rendering.

The game has evolved from the original computer printout to a more fun graphical version while keeping the original feel for everyone to challenge themselves.

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Emanuele Bolognesi

Hi there, welcome to my personal blog! I'm passionate about game design, programming, old computer games, but also gardening and, most importantly, cakes and pastry making. Articles in Italian and English.

My Projects: Super Star Trek meets 25th Anniversary La Colonia Bake Off Italia - The Graphic Adventure Star Trek Pico-8 Super Star Trek

All Articles All my games on Itch

How I rewrote the 1978 text-only Super Star Trek game

During the last two weeks, I spent all my free time working hard on one of the most ridiculous achievements of my life: dissecting, understanding, and rewriting the old 1978 Super StarTrek videogame.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s an old text-only game, a sort of early example of turn-based space strategy sim, written in BASIC . In this game, you are the captain of the starship Enterprise, and your mission is to scout the federation space and eliminate all the invading Klingon ships. You will have to carefully manage the ship energy, use phasers and torpedoes to destroy the Klingons, and find starbases to repair damages and replenish your energy. All of this, rendered with a few characters on screen and a lot of imagination.

You control the Enterprise entering commands at the prompt: NAV to move the ship, PHA to fire with the phasers, LRS to scan the quadrants with your long-range sensors, and so on. Despite its simplicity, it’s a great example of programming and game design .

If you are curious about this game's story, how it looks like, or how to play it, I wrote another article about Super Star Trek here . Otherwise, know that it was created in 1974 and became hugely popular when it was published, in an improved version written by  Bob Leedom , in the 1978 book  BASIC COMPUTER GAMES .

I’m not talking about a game that was distributed on a disk. The book contained the code, and people had to type it on their computers. Since BASIC was a universal language at the time, the game code could work on many different machines.

What does this have to do with me?

In 1983 I bought the Italian edition of a book called  Zap! Pow! Boom! : Arcade Games for the VIC-20  by Mark Ramshaw. It contained 30 games for the VIC-20, written in BASIC. The 8th game was called Star Trek. I copied it all on my VIC-20 as soon as I arrived home and started to play it. It was simple, but I immediately fell in love with it. It was maybe the best game I have ever typed on that computer.

It took me 37 years to realize that this program was actually an adaptation of Leedom’s Super Star Trek. I discovered a few months ago when I bought a copy of David Ahl’s BASIC COMPUTER GAMES on eBay — yes, a book that was released in 1978.. better late than never!

Of course, I immediately decided to try the original Super Star Trek . Thank god, this time, I didn’t have to type all the code. I just went to the  Vintage Basic website, I downloaded the BASIC interpreter, the source code of the game, and I run it.

Leedom’s version is really fantastic and, of course, much better than the reduced version I had to play on my VIC-20.

I know what you are thinking; it’s just nostalgia and so on. But the reality is, I actually had a lot of fun playing it.

Picture this: at some point, after a difficult battle with three Klingon ships, both my short-range sensors and long-range sensors were damaged. The energy was almost depleted. Time was almost over, so I deviated the shields’ power to the engines — as Scott would do. Then, I tried to reach the nearest starbase using only the navigation computer. But when I entered the quadrant, the computer went off too. Damn! So I attempted to navigate blindly, hoping to dock to the starbase.. and I did it! Pity that in the end, Klingons won, but hey, it was fun.

Rewriting the code

After playing for a while, I googled a bit to see if, during all these years, someone had rewritten the game in a more readable format. The 1978 code was cryptic and with almost no comments explaining the algorithms.

I found many game ports on the Internet, like this excellent one , but none was the original 1978 Super StarTrek. These new editions featured cloaking devices, supernovae, death rays, Romulans, and more. But I wanted the original one, so I decided to do the porting myself in the end. That’s the best way to understand a program, right?

Initially, I chose to write it in Perl because it’s a scripting language that can be run from any Mac or Linux, and because Perl has a goto statement. I didn’t think it was possible, at least initially, to port all the original BASIC code without using any goto.

But even the simple translation was tougher than I expected. Imagine porting 500 lines of BASIC code, packed as much as possible, to save memory — which means each row contains several instructions separated by a semicolon and without any space. Look at these lines, for example:

I patiently rewrote every line, carefully trying to avoid any mistake. If you miss a character, everything can change. I started with a 1-to-1 translation, but I soon realized that I could not leave all these goto there; otherwise, I would not be able to read it. So I began transforming some if-then-goto, into if-then-else blocks.

On the next line, you will see a THEN3360 which is, in fact, a continue statement (next in Perl), because it ends the current iteration. The GOTO3370 you can see at line 3350 is another break. And so on.

It was not always so easy. Soon I realized that some gotos were jumping to unexpected places, like the middle of a function, or the middle of a then block. It was like a labyrinth.

Patiently identifying and separating all the code blocks was the most difficult part of the job, but it was very useful for understanding game mechanics. As long as I was getting familiar with the code, I also gave meaningful names to the variables, such as “EnergyLevel” instead of “E” or “TotalKlingonShips” instead of “K3”.

You might ask, why would anyone do that on a game written in 1978? I know, it’s crazy. But I wanted to finish it, I wanted to make the code “mine”. And I wanted to clean the mess. It was tough to go to sleep with the code unfinished, leaving the mess behind.

In the end, I made it, and I was really proud of it.

After the Perl version, I decided to port the game to LUA . To do this, I basically checked all the code from scratch. In Perl, I used a lot of next (aka continue) and last. But LUA doesn’t have a continue statement, so I had to rewrite most of the loops. But, it was useful in the end. I have to admit the code is much better now, and I know all the parts very well.

I left a lot of comments, for me and anyone who wants to understand the code. You will find things like this.

Clearly, the work will never be finished; the code can be improved a lot more. But for now, it’s fully working; the game looks and behaves exactly like the original one — mission accomplished.

If you are ready to play, check the link on the left to download my version of Super Star Trek . If you are a developer you can also go to my  GitHub account  to find both the LUA and Perl versions.

What's next

I'd like to continue working on this game, but I'm not sure how. There's no point in adding more features; many others did it already, and better than me. There's no point in adding more weapons, more enemies, and more things. I like the "classic" experience, and I don't want to change it.

Maybe what I would like to do is keep the existing mechanics, but build something "on top." Would it be possible to add a story and some adventure elements? Can I try to recreate the feeling of a real TV episode with this simple game mechanics? That would be a nice experiment. Let's see.

For now, I hope you enjoyed the article and that you will try my version of the game. Happy star trekking!

UPDATE FEB 2023 : I realized I had to update this "What's next" paragraph because my work on this project is still going on. Last year I published a PICO-8 version of Super Star Trek. Recently I released Super Star Trek (1978) meets Star Trek 25th Anniversary , a conversion of Super Star Trek using the graphics of the Interplay adventure.

If you want more technical details, this post about a version that I called the TOS version contains some details about the changes/improvements I made to the original code (e.g., trigonometric functions, persistent objects, etc.). The PICO-8 and 25th versions include these improvements.

Thanks again, Mister Leedom!

If you liked this article, share it!

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The text-based Star Trek computer game from 1973

Trek73 is a computer space-battle simulation based on the original Star Trek television series . It was written in 1973 in the BASIC programming language and played on a Teletype connected to a HP 2000 computer. Trek73 was unique in its day because it was more than just a board game with a computer player. It involved the calculation of the trajectories of the virtual ships and projectiles with enemy ships controlled by a relatively sophisticated AI. The addition of dialog and situations from the original Star Trek series made this game a favorite of early players and future programmers. It had a long-lasting influence and was revised and recoded through the 1980s and 90s and it can still be played today in a number of forms.

Table of Contents

This is the first game in the Star Trek series. For other games in the series see the Star Trek category .

Star Trek is a text-based strategy game written by Mike Mayfield and published through various means. It was written in BASIC and was was often copied to home computers in the late 1970s when the Super Star Trek version was included in BASIC Computer Games (a compilation book containing the code of many BASIC games). Versions for a wide variety of BASICs were available, as well as ports to different languages, platforms, and more recently, the replacement of the text-based display with a variety of graphical versions.

In addition to being tied to the Star Trek subculture, popular with computer experts and programmers, Star Trek is itself a piece of hacker lore. The game was not licensed by the Star Trek franchise, but it was the first game to be widely published that was tied to Star Trek lore.

Story [ edit ]

The game puts the player in command of the USS Enterprise on a mission to hunt down and destroy an invading fleet of Klingon warships.

Star Trek/Table of Contents

• Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator
• Voyager - The Arcade Game
• Star Trek (script game)
• 3-D Star Trek
• Begin: A Tactical Starship Simulation
• The Promethean Prophecy
• The Kobayashi Alternative
• First Contact
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Transinium Challenge
• Star Trek: The Rebel Universe
• Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
• Phaser Strike
• The Motion Picture
• 25th Anniversary
• Judgment Rites
• The Next Generation - A Final Unity
• Deep Space Nine: Harbinger
• Chekov's Lost Missions
• Generations
• The Next Generation: Klingon Honor Guard
• The Game Show
• Starship Creator
• Birth of the Federation
• Starfleet Command
• Hidden Evil
• The Next Generation: Future's Past
• The Next Generation
• The Next Generation: Echoes from the Past
• Beyond the Nexus
• Deep Space Nine - Crossroads of Time
• Deep Space Nine: The Fallen
• ConQuest Online
• Klingon Academy
• Starship Creator Warp II
• Voyager - Elite Force
• Deep Space Nine: Dominion Wars
• Starfleet Command II: Empires at War
• Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates
• Starfleet Command III
• Bridge Commander
• Elite Force II
• Shattered Universe
• Tactical Assault
• Star Trek (2013)
• Bridge Crew
• Prodigy: Supernova
• Guides at completion stage 0
• SDS Sigma 7
• Data General Nova
• Single player

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Video Game / Star Trek Text Game

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"I've seen the sources to dozens of Star Trek computer games that various people have written, and I have to believe it's some kind of law. In all of these games, for many different systems, written in many different computer programming languages, and all written independently of each other, all have one thing in common. The variable used to count the number of remaining Klingons — the enemy — that haven't been killed yet, is always K9 ." — Paul Robinson

The first Star Trek computer game note  The original version used teletype for output, so it was a few years before it became a "video game"! is a Turn-Based Strategy game written by Mike Mayfield in 1971 on a Sigma 7 mainframe , using the BASIC programming language. It became one of the big hits of the early home computer era in the late 1970s and early 1980s .

Klingon warships have invaded Federation space, and it's up to the Enterprise to hunt them down. Federation space is divided into a grid of 8 by 8 quadrants note  This is at odds with later Paramount Trek canon, in which the galaxy is divided into only 4 quadrants. A quadrant is supposed to mean a quarter, after all. , and each quadrant is a grid of 8 by 8 sectors. The Enterprise starts in one quadrant, which may have Klingons in it. If not, use long-range scanners to determine the contents of nearby quadrants. Quadrants may contain Klingon warships, friendly starbases , and/or stars. Once you find the enemy, warp to that quadrant.

Combat is turn-based. You have phasers and photon torpedoes, and the Klingons have phasers. Your phasers automatically target the enemy, but may take several shots to destroy them. Torpedoes will kill an enemy in one shot, but you only carry a limited supply of them and you have to aim them by typing in a shot angle. The ship's computer (usually) includes a calculator to help you set up the shot. You can also maneuver using impulse drive. Meanwhile, the Klingons are shooting at you and moving around, and stars can get in the way of the fighting. The Enterprise takes Subsystem Damage , so a lucky shot can cripple you until repairs are made.

The Enterprise runs on a Power Source of energy units. Warp drive, shields, and phasers all cost energy. (In some variants, taking a hit to your shields consumes energy.) Dock at a starbase to replenish your energy and torpedoes.

The game ends when all the Klingons are destroyed, or you run out of energy (destroyed by enemy fire or out of warp fuel). In most versions, the game imposes an arbitrary time limit in which you have to destroy all enemies.

BASIC was a very common programming language in the '70s, so the game was ported to minicomputers, and distributed in books and magazines as a type-in program. Later versions deepened the gameplay with exploration, mining missions, and (in some cases) "real time" play where the Klingons acted once every few seconds instead of once per turn. note  A TRS-80 adaptation named Graphictrek 2000 even included steerable torpedoes It became one of the most popular games of the pre-PC college minicomputer era. In 1978, it was ported to Microsoft BASIC, the emerging standard for microcomputers. Versions appeared for the Apple ][ , TRS-80 , and IBM Personal Computer , and it was one of the most popular games on those platforms too. Derivatives with graphics and sound started appearing, in particular Star Raiders , and the original faded into history.     open/close all folders 

    Tropes used in most versions of the game 

• Abandon Ship : Doubling as Video-Game Lives . Some variants of the game allow you to abandon the Enterprise ; you're then given command of a weaker ship, which you can't abandon.
• Boring, but Practical : Energy weapons (phasers, lasers, etc.) require a lot of energy to fire, drop off in effectiveness at longer ranges or when damaged, overheat if used excessively, and can take multiple shots to eliminate an enemy ship, although the last two depend on the skills of the player. At the same time, however, energy weapons never miss the target.

• When Radio Shack wanted to sell the Sol-20 variant "TREK 80" for its TRS-80 microcomputer, they renamed it "Invasion Force", and had it feature the starship U.S.S. Hephaestus firing its masers and triton missiles at Jovian warships.
• Similarly, EGA Trek began with Klingons, the U.S.S. Enterprise , the Federation, and Star Trek ship designs, changing them into "Mongols", the U.S.S. Lexington , the "Union", and somewhat redesigning the ships.
• Sears Telegames' exclusive release for Atari 2600 was called Stellar Track . Interstel's Star Fleet series had the United Galactic Alliance fighting off "Krellans" and "Zaldrons".
• An Apple II variant renamed the Enterprise to the Endeavor , and the Klingons the Klarnons. This allowed the game to keep using "E" for the player's starship and "K" for the enemy ships.
• Critical Existence Failure : While the Enterprise itself will suffer from system breakdowns as it takes battle damage , processing limitations of the time prevent the same from applying to all of the enemy ships. Instead, enemy ships gradually wear down as they take damage , generally dealing less and less damage to the player's vessel. Once cut down to no Hit Points , they promptly explode .
• Defiant to the End : Played straight by most enemy vessels, which will fight to the death, even if they manage to flee at low health. Averted by enemy supply vessels , however, which when damaged nearly to destruction will offer to surrender; if accepted, they give up the various items they were carrying and vanish (presumably having been scuttled).
• Deflector Shields : A staple of Star Trek , these are a powered armor system that serves to absorb damage before it can impact the ship and cause structural and Subsystem Damage . Like the phasers , they are entirely reliant on the ship's main reactor to function.
• Distress Call : Starbases , planetary settlements, and other starships can send these out at random times if they have enemy ships in their sector; planets may come under attack without any ships in their sector. Successfully rescuing whoever sent the call adds a bonus to the player's score. Then again, if two or more of these calls come up with short deadlines and in opposite directions, it becomes a Sadistic Choice as to which one you think you can help and which one you will allow to be destroyed.
• Enemy-Detecting Radar : The Ur-Example in video games. The Enterprise has both long-range scanners and short range scanners: the long range scanners can tell how many Klingon warships are in a neighboring quadrant, but not precisely where they were in the quadrant, while the short range scanner is used to aim and fire at specific targets within a quadrant.
• Evil Only Has to Win Once : THE ENTERPRISE HAS BEEN DESTROYED. THE FEDERATION WILL BE CONQUERED
• Flip-Screen Scrolling : Moving from quadrant to quadrant, the layouts of which are randomized on every visit.
• Freeware Games : It was released into the public domain shortly after it was written.
• Game Mod : Since it's a type-in BASIC program, you can change it any way you like.
• Game Over : Possibly video gaming's Ur-Example : THE ENTERPRISE HAS BEEN DESTROYED. THE FEDERATION WILL BE CONQUERED.
• Gotta Kill Them All : The objective is to clear all Klingon ships and bases from that sector of the galaxy.
• Hope Spot : When responding to a Distress Call from an allied vessel, the player needs to work very quickly in eliminating the surrounding Klingons, Mongols, etc., as the allied vessel scarcely has a couple of turns in combat (sometimes only one ) before the enemy vessels destroy it. Also, if you take too long getting there, you will only get a message about debris present in the sector , and then face combat against the enemy ship(s) that are still there.
• Hyperspeed Escape : In most versions of the game (including the original), enemy ships do not have the ability to pursue the Enterprise at warp speed. As a result, it can be a good idea to escape at warp if overwhelmed. Some versions also allow Klingon, Mongol, etc. commanders and scout ships to flee into neighbouring quadrants if heavily damaged but still intact, necessitating pursuit later on for cleanup .
• Damage to the Main Computer results in the loss of data on the long-range sensor map, meaning the player has to fly around to scan it all again, or reconstruct the last known tactical situation from their own memory.
• Damage to the short-range sensor subsystem causes objects to disappear from the map of the current quadrant, starting with vessels and space stations and progressing up to planets and stars. At 0%, the sector simply shows as blank note  although in at least some versions, enemy ship coordinates can still be found via the "SCAN" command , which can be especially problematic if the quadrant contains a black hole or two for the player to blunder into when moving at impulse.
• Damage to the long-range sensors renders the player's vessel unable to accurately scan adjacent quadrants, either leaving them with just the number of stars or the presence of a starbase, or at higher levels of damage the nearby quadrants will simply show as blank on the in-game star chart.
• Invisible Wall : You'll run into one of these if you try to leave the 8x8 quadrant playfield. In some variants, your engines automatically shut down and you get the message "Sorry, edge of galaxy in that direction." In others, you crash into the energy barrier surrounding the galaxy and get damaged.
• It's Up to You : In most versions of the game, the Enterprise is the only armed ship in the entire sector.
• Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better : In the Star Trek universe, Photon Torpedoes are matter-antimatter warheads with a miniature warp drive. This game treats them as unguided projectiles to prevent them from being overpowered. The onboard stock of torpedoes is extremely limited, and they have to be aimed manually. They also destroy enemy ships in one hit.
• Luck-Based Mission : Largely based on the difficulty selected by the player. Higher levels tend to have fewer starbases, or at least useful ones where the player can recharge, rearm and repair their ship, and those that are present can, if you're really unlucky, all be surrounded by enemy ships, leaving you with no safe haven until one calls for help. Subsystem Damage is also random, so in one mission it might end up occurring only rarely, while in another mission, you might have to spend plenty of time following one battle after another just repairing systems to keep the ship capable of taking on the next fight.
• The Mole : In various versions, the ship's security department can capture an enemy spy aboard the vessel, who will have managed to damage a random subsystem before being caught. No mention is made of the spy's subsequent fate, although presumably given the nature of The Federation , they're probably kept in custody and imprisoned later.
• Nonstandard Game Over : Running out of fuel. Probably the Ur-Example . THE ENTERPRISE IS DEAD IN SPACE . IF YOU SURVIVE ALL IMPENDING ATTACK YOU WILL BE DEMOTED TO THE RANK OF PRIVATE.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome : The fact that it takes some time to warp anywhere on the map means that a Space Station , planetary settlement or allied ship that called for help may have been enduring combat for days on end by the time the player's ship arrives. Usually, when the player is in combat, it's over within a fraction of a stardate.
• You can shoot your own starbases! Another probable Ur-Example . Depending on the version, torpedoing your own starbase will either merely warn you and dock your score, or destroy it — thereby making it impossible to refuel there again — or even cause the starbase to destroy you in retaliation.
• Some versions also allow the player to self-destruct their starship, which can be a means of Taking You with Me .
• Randomly Generated Levels : The numbers and locations of Klingons, starbases, and stars are randomized at game start. Additionally, the layout of each quadrant randomizes when you enter it.
• Ray Gun : Phasers (or their renamed substitutes). They draw energy directly from the ships' power supply and never miss .
• Resources Management Gameplay : Managing your time, power, and ammunition are all critical to success.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale : In this case, it's gamemakers who have no sense of scale. The asterisk symbols are typically used to represent stars , of which there can be up to nine in a given quadrant. One strategy in combat is to maneuver around stars to get clear shots at the enemy ships, since if an enemy ship is behind a star from your vessel's position, a torpedo will just get absorbed by the star instead (though energy weapons will pass right through). In real life, all of these stars are light-years apart, even in a setting like a stellar nursery in a nebula. The concept would be far more plausible if the asterisks represented planets, moons, or asteroids.
• Subsystem Damage : Another Ur-Example . If the Enterprise takes a hit without her shields protecting the hull, or with damage already existing to the shields subsystems, one or more of her subsystems will take damage and operate at a reduced level. Additionally, the ship can experience random system breakdowns. The player can either attempt repairs in deep space, or dock with a friendly starbase (which completes the repairs quicker). You don't have to stay stationary to do this; you can order repair crews simply to focus on a particular subsystem, and they will still fix it while the ship moves within a quadrant or warps from one quadrant to another.
• Turn-Based Strategy : Combat alternates between the Enterprise and the Klingons.
• Micklus's Star Trek 3.5 downplayed this by representing the galaxy as an 8 by 8 by 3 three-dimensional grid of quadrants.
• Unique Protagonist Asset : The Enterprise (or its renamed substitutes) is substantially stronger than any individual opponent that it faces, and can fire torpedoes, which no allied NPC vessel is able to do.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential : A mild case; if the player sees on their star chart that an allied starbase has enemy ships in the same quadrant, it's usually a better idea to go around cleaning up enemies elsewhere until the starbase puts out a Distress Call , and only then moving to that quadrant to clean up. Or if an enemy ship moves into a quadrant with a starbase , it can be worth warping away and attacking the enemy elsewhere until the call for help arrives. Both courses of action allow the player to get credit for destroying the enemy ships and bonus points for saving a starbase under attack.

    Tropes only appearing in specific versions 

• Awesome, but Impractical : Mongol plasma bolts in EGA Trek . The player has to take time actively raiding enemy supply ships and planetary supply bases to find any, and even then, they're relatively rare. Even though the player's ship can fire them repeatedly without incurring counterattacks, plasma bolts have a fairly high chance of failing to detonate (although the NPC ships never seem to have any problem hitting you ). The player is generally better off relying on their torpedoes and energy weapons unless the situation really calls for the extra firepower, and even then having a backup plan in case the bolt(s) end(s) up doing nothing.
• Badass in Distress : Allied starbases and ships sometimes put out Distress Calls if enemy ships are in the same quadrant, whereupon the player can come to their aid for bonus points in their game score. Starbases tend to last a fair while in combat but deal no damage to the enemy , while allied ships tend to be fairly fragile but they do chip away at the enemy ships' shields with their energy weapons.
• Boarding Party : A rare event that can occur in some versions. If you warp into combat or get pulled there using a tractor beam while your vessel's shields are down, a group of enemies (e.g. Mongols) can beam over into a given subsystem (e.g. the torpedo tube control room) aboard the ship and do damage to it until security teams eliminate them.
• Boss in Mook Clothing : Mongol Bases in EGA Trek scarcely look any more intimidating than their usual array of ships — until the player gets anywhere close and has to deal with the ungodly amount of damage that they quickly dish out, which usually causes a whole mess of Subsystem Damage since they only show up on higher difficulty levels. If the Lexington is not at full strength confronting one, and there are multiple Mongol ships around it (which is usually the case), it's often a good idea to pull a Tactical Withdrawal , go find a friendly starbase and resupply or repair, or keep on fighting elsewhere until a Mongol supply ship or planetary supply base yields a Plasma Bolt or two, and then come back and crack the Stone Wall .
• Cloaking Device : EGA Trek also included " Vandal " ships with this ability. The Zaldrons of "Star Fleet I" had this ability as well.
• Death or Glory Attack : One frequent addition to the game is to equip a superweapon on the player's ship, like the Death Ray from EGA Trek or the E-ray from TREK 80 . If it worked, it killed every enemy in a quadrant. When it didn't work, it could do enough damage to destroy or cripple the player's ship, cause Unrealistic Black Holes to appear all over the current quadrant, or in EGA Trek , temporarily mutate your crew and leave them drawing smiley faces on the interface while ignoring your orders and speaking nonsense .
• Dirty Coward : In EGA Trek , " Mongol " Scout and Commander ships have the ability to flee into neighbouring quadrants if damaged and not destroyed, necessitating time-consuming pursuit sooner or later for cleanup.
• Elite Mooks : In EGA Trek , these come in the form of Mongol Commander battleships, and on higher difficulty levels, the occasional Mongol Base ; both are significantly tougher than the average battlecruiser of their faction.
• Epic Fail : In EGA Trek , whenever a Mongol Plasma Bolt fails to explode, since they're usually a One-Hit Kill or even a One-Hit Polykill if employed against an enemy base or vessel.
• Exploding Barrels : Stars can explode if a torpedo is fired into them in some versions, destroying anything in the surrounding sectors. The game penalizes players for stars destroyed to discourage the use of this as a tactic. Some versions, like EGA Trek , also have the risk of stars going supernova, destroying the entire quadrant and damaging the player's ship as it's violently thrown out.
• Explosive Overclocking : The player's ship usually has a cruising speed of Warp 6, although Warp 7 simply costs a lot more power to get anywhere, and Warp 8 can be attempted in emergencies at the cost of damage to the warp engine subsystem.
• Fragile Speedster : In EGA Trek , Mongol scout ships are capable of repeatedly retreating to adjacent sectors when attacked, but ultimately they pack somewhat less offensive power and defensive resilience compared to standard Mongol battleships in a straight fight.
• From Bad to Worse : Some versions, particularly at higher difficulty levels, allow enemy ships to warp in from adjacent quadrants to your own to Gang Up on the Human . That said, if the player is defending a starbase at the time, it becomes a case of Too Dumb to Live and/or Suicidal Overconfidence . It can also be exploited to reduce the time spent flying around seeking out the enemy.
• Guide Dang It! : The game generally doesn't mention that the player has to manually reset their warp factor from 1 up to the desired speed upon starting up a new mission note  usually Warp 6, unless an emergency demands Warp 8 . This can result in an incautious or unaware player blowing a massive amount of time and ruining their score right off the bat, if they forget to call up Engineering and change the warp factor before they try to leave their first quadrant and take the fight to the enemy.
• HP to One : To get a supply ship Piñata Enemy to surrender, the player must cut them down to almost destruction, but not push them over the edge to a Critical Existence Failure . Torpedoes are usually too powerful to allow this, so energy weapons are the only way to get the precise amount of damage to force a surrender.
• Hyperspeed Ambush : Some versions allow the Klingon, Mongol, etc. ships to warp in from surrounding quadrants to join in a battle against the player's ship, or the same enemies are capable of using a Tractor Beam to intercept the player's vessel and pull it into a quadrant where they weren't intending to go.
• Immune to Bullets : Vandal ships in EGA Trek , being cloaked, automatically dodge all torpedo attacks. The only way to take them out, short of setting off a nova nearby or having a plasma bolt on hand, is to fly up to close range and pour a large amount of "laser" energy into them until they explode.
• Insistent Terminology : The galactic grid is usually said to be composed of 64 quadrants in a standard game. A quadrant is actually a fourth of something. So it would be more proper to call them sectors, and their divisions subsectors. The Star Trek universe does properly divide the galaxy into four quadrants, but these games were made decades before that development appeared. It may be an understandable mistake, as the original series was sometimes erroneous and inconsistent in the use of the terms "quadrant" and "sector".
• Interface Spoiler : In EGA Trek , at least, a player can enter orbit around a planet to be told there is a "destroyed settlement" there, which can be confusing if the planet has never sent a Distress Call during the mission. At some point later on, the planet will call for help, and if the player arrives in time, it will now have a settlement on it (or a destroyed one again if the player arrives Late to the Tragedy ).
• Can occur in EGA Trek , when the player has damaged one or more enemy ships nearly to destruction and a "Vandal Death Pod" or two just happens to enter the quadrant and deal Scratch Damage to everybody, barely affecting the player's shields but putting the enemy ships over the edge to a Critical Existence Failure . Particularly frustrating if the enemy vessels in question were supply ships that were almost at the point of surrendering, and now they're debris that can't give you any useful stuff.
• Allied ships can also pull this off when you come to their rescue, as unlike starbases, they do chip away at the enemy ships every turn with their energy weapons. They can also invert this trope, however, as they don't last long in combat, so the player can warp into a sector to attempt a rescue only to see the allied vessel become debris the next turn.
• Supernovae, which can randomly occur in any sector without the player's ship ever disturbing a star, also destroy NPC ships and space stations instead of throwing them free. These are zigzagged, though, as the elimination of the ships still counts towards the player's score, they're not penalized for destroying the star (since it occurred naturally), and now they don't have to spend the time, energy, ammunition and effort to go there and eliminate the enemy vessels. On the other hand, allied starbases are not immune, so a supernova can instantly wipe out a prime place to repair and rearm the ship.
• Kleptomaniac Hero : Barring a Distress Call or two to answer elsewhere, it is generally always worth inspecting any planet the player comes across in the event that it yields spare Power Crystals for emergency power reserves, or better yet, an enemy supply base that may hold useful equipment. The same goes for space combat in the games where enemy supply ships spawn, which can be beaten down into surrendering their cargo. It can make the difference against heavy odds later on, or allow your vessel to stay out and hunting enemy ships for longer without having to spend time returning to a starbase to resupply and/or repair.
• Research stations do not recharge your ship's energy, do not reload your ship's torpedoes, and give the player's vessel absolutely no benefit in terms of subsystem repairs or shield protection, though you have to go and help them anyways when they send out a Distress Call due to enemy ships in the sector. About the only thing they do is refill life support supplies, if that subsystem is damaged.
• Supply depots are somewhat similar to research stations, but they at least reload the player's torpedoes. They still do nothing to shield the player's vessel in combat or improve repair times.
• Allied ships scarcely do any Scratch Damage in combat, and last a turn or two before promptly getting blown into debris. But if you're going for that high score, you've got to help them anyways.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me : The answer to an incoming Mongol plasma bolt in EGA Trek , unless going Screw This, I'm Out of Here! , is to raise a plasma bolt shield right away . These are generally obtained from raiding planet-based Mongol supply bases, or by getting their supply ships to surrender in combat.
• Negative Space Wedgie : Black holes. In EGA Trek , for example, they will redirect any fired torpedoes that come near them, and if the player flies their ship into one, it can act as a wormhole and dump them out into a random quadrant note  which can be a handy emergency escape method when the warp engines are offline — or it can just One-Hit Kill the player's starship and end the game.
• Torpedoes usually achieve this in most versions, if they make contact with the target at close to medium range.
• EGA Trek takes this up to eleven with Mongol Plasma Bolts, which are capable of safely taking out the Mongols' hostile starbases — or damaging the Lexington severely if deployed by the Mongols.
• The Mongol Plasma Bolts in EGA Trek . If used by the player on tightly grouped Mongol ships, the Splash Damage will kill not only the target but usually all Mongol or Vandal ships immediately adjacent to the target. Even then, they tend to deal at least some Scratch Damage to enemy ships throughout the current quadrant.
• The antimatter pods in TREK 80 and Invasion Force . When detonated by the player, they erase the sector of space they occupy and all 8 of the surrounding sectors. Anything in those sectors is wiped from existence, including the player's starship if he's stupid enough to detonate the pod next to himself. (The sectors also stay erased, so you can't fire beams or torpedoes through them; and if you enter one of them, your ship is instantly destroyed.)
• Supernovae also instantly destroy all vessels or bases in their quadrant, friendly or hostile, with the sole exception of throwing the player's ship into a neighbouring quadrant. Of course, in this case, everyone present is facing a case of There Is No Kill Like Overkill .
• "Photon Torpedoes" in any Star Trek game that kept the original terminology.
• "Triton Missiles" in Radio Shack's "Invasion Force". (TREK 80, which Invasion Force was based on, did have Triton Mines, which would destroy everything in the quadrant including the Enterprise.)
• "Energy Torpedoes" in EGA Trek , which also featured "Plasma Bolts", though the latter were rarer and more deadly.
• Piñata Enemy : EGA Trek sometimes spawns Mongol supply ships, which are much weaker than the usual battleships, and if the player batters them merely to the point of surrender (not destruction), they hand over their cargo to the player's ship before vanishing from the map . This loot can vary from emergency life support supplies to Mongol power crystals (i.e. dilithium), plasma bolts , and plasma bolt shields .
• Power Source : Your energy. In some versions, it is finite; in others like EGA Trek , it replenishes very slowly — and guess which subsystem tends to fail the most?
• Press X to Not Die : From EGA Trek : Message: Mongol at X-Y fires a plasma bolt. Player: USE Player: *Enter* Player: *selects correct number* Message: Raising plasma bolt shield ...
• Schmuck Bait : In some versions, the enemies (e.g. Mongols) may hail the player's vessel demanding their surrender, if the ship is sufficiently damaged or low on energy to fight. Actually accepting the offer results in an instant Game Over of mission failure, although at least the player's crew don't die, as opposed to the ship being lost with all hands (the usual way to lose). The mission summary that ensues with the player's score for the mission even rags on them for being "cowardly" as a commander .
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil : In EGA Trek , on lower difficulty levels, the Mongol fleet consists of standard battleships , while higher difficulty levels add variety in the form of Scout ships , Supply Ships , Mongol Commanders , and eventually Mongol Bases .
• Friendly ones of varying types are encountered frequently, where the player can repair and resupply their ship.
• EGA Trek adds hostile Mongol bases that serve as immobile Elite Mooks .
• Vandal ships in EGA Trek never move, and they don't attack the player's vessel, but they No-Sell any torpedo attacks (due to a Cloaking Device ), and generally require much more laser energy damage to destroy than standard Mongol battleships or even Commander vessels can take in the same game.
• Allied Union starbases in EGA Trek serve the same function — if the player docks with one while in combat with Mongol warships in the sector, its shields will then protect the Lexington from return fire, although the starbase itself is still an obstacle to torpedo shots aimed at the enemy.
• EGA Trek had a variety of Palette Swapped "Mongol" ships as Elite Mooks , scout ships or supply vessels .
• EGA Trek also had the possibility to explore planets, sending either a landing party either via transporter or shuttlecraft to get the stuff detected by the Lexington 's sensors. These attempts can frequently end in failure, as the landing party would often be attacked, resulting in the loss of crew members and no beneficial resources gained.
• Supertrek has a use of shuttlecraft where you would mine for dilithium crystals on planets. This was an alternative to refueling at a starbase.
• Supertrek also had Romulans that were more of a nuisance than a threat. If you entered a Romulan quadrant, they'd simply politely ask you to leave. They didn't attack unless you attacked them first. And their attacks were weak.
• Unrealistic Black Hole : Zigzagged ; black holes will redirect torpedoes that come near them onto random vectors, but energy weapons can be fired through them unaffected, and if the player's ship enters one, it may get harmlessly ejected into a random quadrant , or just destroyed outright . In some versions, the player can actually generate black holes for various reasons, such as covering a quadrant with them when the Death Ray from EGA Trek misfires.
• Video Game Caring Potential : Later versions of the game, like EGA Trek , feature weaker enemy ships (generally supply ships) that will surrender once damaged to minimal health instead of stubbornly fighting to the death.
• We Have Reserves : Higher difficulty levels (usually "Admiral") can allow the random (if rare) appearance of Klingon, Mongol, etc. reinforcements as the game progresses. Even if they show up on the other side of the quadrant map, you still Gotta Kill Them All .
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A Brief History Of Star Trek PC Games

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1971: Star Trek: A Text Adventure

The first Star Trek game was created in the early 1970s as a text-based space simulator. Although the game was fairly simple, it marked the entry of Star Trek into the video game world. Over the years, Star Trek has grown into one of the most successful franchises in the world, spawning dozens of games, several movies and hundreds of TV shows. We're taking a look at the games created inside the Star Trek universe as they evolved over time.

Because of the extremely high volume of Star Trek games in existence, we focused on games created for computers. These include games created for Windows, Apple, DOS, Amiga and similar systems. We've dug up as many of these games as possible, although because some Star Trek games created prior to the year 2000 have fallen into obscurity due to their age, there may be some about which we were unable to learn sufficient details to mention here.

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1984: Begin

The next entry into the Star Trek gaming world was called Begin . This game marked the transition from the text-based game to one that actually required you to use buttons to control your vessel.

1985: Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative

Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative is the first in a series of text adventures from game publisher Simon & Schuster Interactiv e . These games focused on the cast of the original Star Trek series as they dealt with a series of challenges.

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In this game, you take control of Captain Kirk as you attempt to repair your ship and complete other objectives.

1986: Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy

The second Star Trek game by publisher Simon & Schuster Interactiv e was Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy .

The Promethean Prophecy is centered around the Promethean solar system, which the Enterprise arrives at as part of its ongoing mission of exploration. The ship is then attacked by the Romulans and sustains considerable damage. During the game, players attempt to complete a series of tasks to help the crew survive, deal with the Romulan threat, and explore the Promethean system.

1987: Star Trek: The Rebel Universe

The third Star Trek game by publisher Simon & Schuster Interactiv e was Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy .

In this game, you take control of various members of the original cast as the Enterprise makes its way to a mysterious part of space. All Federation ships previously sent to this area have rebelled against the Federation, and it's your mission to discover why.

1988: Star Trek: First Contact

The last Star Trek text-based adventure from publisher Simon & Schuster Interactive that we are able to find information about is titled Star Trek: First Contact . It focuses on first contact with a new alien race.

1992: Star Trek 25th Anniversary

On the 25th anniversary of the Star Trek franchise, Interplay produced a game titled Star Trek: 25th Anniversary . This game, like all prior Star Trek games, followed the original cast through a variety of missions. The game has two primary modes of play: Most of the game is played from the bridge of the enterprise, but at times, members of the crew will leave on away missions.

During the away missions, the game behaves more like a click adventure to gather items and investigate the world. The game was originally released on floppy disk, but later it was ported to CD-ROM. The CD-ROM port featured a few improvements over the original, including voice acting from the original Star Trek cast.

1993: Star Trek: Judgment Rites

The 25th anniversary game was followed up by a direct sequel titled Star Trek: Judgment Rites that was released in 1993. The overall game play is similar to Star Trek: The 25th Anniversary , and the missions are set up to take place directly following the previous game. Like its predecessor, Star Trek: Judgment Rites used voice acting performed by the original Star Trek cast.

1995: Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity

In 1995, the Star Trek game franchise transitioned to the cast of the Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series, which had recently finished its final season. The game uses a click-adventure style interface reminiscent of the previous two Star Trek games. The overall game play has been extended, however, with the addition of new parts of the ship to explore (outside of the bridge) and new ship systems to use. At times, the player would also transport off of the Enterprise D to go on away missions.

1996: Star Trek: Klingon

In 1996, publisher Simon & Schuster made a return to the Star Trek game franchise with Star Trek: Klingon . This game could almost be construed as an educational tool for learning Klingon culture much as a game. The entire game is technically played inside of a holodeck simulation created by Gowron, the Klingon High Chancellor. The purpose of the simulation is to teach the player about Klingon culture and language by navigating a series of social situations.

The player must act correctly in each situation to progress the story. This sometimes requires the player to understand the Klingon language and recognize Klingon cuisine such as Gagh.

1996: Star Trek: Borg

Star Trek: Borg represented an attempt by publisher Simon & Schuster to build on the success of Star Trek: Klingon . The game uses a relatively similar style of gameplay, but with a completely different story. Players take control of a man named Qaylan Furlong. Qaylan is greeted by an unexpected visit by Q, who gives Qaylan a chance to travel back in time and save his father from dying in battle with the Borg at the Battle of Wolf 359.

Throughout the game, the players must explore the ship to learn about the events unfolding, answer questions from Q, and solve puzzles. This game proved to be overall less successful than its predecessor.

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• ern88 I wish they would do another Bridge Commander style game. Reply
• Reynar Uhhh...Birth of the Federation was turn-based. And glorious despite the game breaking memory leak and other bugs. Reply
• adgjlsfhk No star trek armada III? technically its a mod, but it still is amazing. Reply
• Mopar63 Birth of the Federation was an amazing game that needs to be remade. Sadly it was never properly supported. The Star Fleet Command series will always hold a special place in my heart. I worked with Taldren as a part of the "Inner Circle" a select group of play testers that worked directly with the devs. I was also the creator and Editor and Chief of Hailing Frequencies, an SFC Fanzine. Of all the Star Fleet Commands my least favorite was SFC III, I just never felt it captured the essence of SFC. I works on the New Worlds beta, all I can say is I am sorry. :-( I played a lot of Star Trek Online but Perfect World has pretty much ruined what started as a great Star Trek game. Reply
• dimar I would love Star Trek game series, Mass Effect style. Rich story line and lots of action. But no prequels. I hate prequels! Reply
• enewmen Some where exceptionally good, but only similar to Star Trek - having warp, shield, photons, etc. The Cosmic Balance by SSI (1982) for example added strategy by limiting the space available by hull size. So you can have a ton of weapons, but no shields. Or Super fast but no weapons. Or good weapons & shields but no living space. Balanced, Or any combination. The paper game "Star Fleet Battles" (1979) was also excellent, but there was never a good computer game version of that. Edit: Most licenced "Star Trek" games where made for suckers and totally SUCKED! "Starship Creator" (1998) for example was exceptionally bad (wait 2 hours to cross the map and nothing happens). Edit again: I have no love for Star Trek online - no good reason and I can't die. Just don't like it. Reply
• jaguarskx Playing Star Trek Online while doing a bit of moderation...LOL. Reply
• jaguarskx Star Trek Bridge Crew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=romB8e5nMp8 Reply
• cletus_slackjawd Armada and bridge commander where my favorite Reply
• wifiburger did not play a single startrek game, even tough the movies / tv series are decent, FPS MMO would be nice I'll play that :-) 20% no man sky and 80% destiny yeah that would be awesome Reply
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The Fair Shake

Star trek: the simon and schuster text adventures.

As I type this, Star Trek Into Darkness is still pretty fresh in my mind. It was a good movie, don’t get me wrong, but the fan-boy in me is pretty aggravated for a few reasons, which I won’t get into. The past few weeks here on 1 MC have seen a multitude of Star Trek games covered, from the unreleased Star Trek V for the NES, the Next Generation game, and back again to an early 80’s arcade release. I noticed a gaping hole in all this coverage. What if I told you there was not just one, but TWO excellent, extremely difficult text adventures based in the Star Trek universe?

These are both better than Star Trek V

Simon and Schuster, of book fame, had a fairly active game publishing division. For a time in the mid 80’s, you didn’t just head down to a computer store for games, you could find a bunch at your local Waldenbooks bookstore. They sold several text adventure games from Infocom and Simon & Schuster, among other software companies, usually held in a spinning rack that’d you find stuffed with comic books in your local 7-11 today. The games came in a little binder that doubled as the instruction manual. They were so difficult that the publishers later included a small hint book.

So hard, it came with it’s own clue book. (TKA)

The first game, ‘The Kobayashi Alternative” was released back in 1985 for most of the popular computer systems of the day. At this time, there was no Enterprise; Trek movie-dom had it destroyed over the Genesis planet. The game has you in the role of a would-be starship captain. Starfleet is testing out a new Kobayashi Maru scenario , and lucky you gets to be the first one to run the test. You are simulated as the captain of the USS Enterprise, tracking down the USS Heinlen, which was lost following an attack. The Heinlein just happens to be commanded by Mr. Sulu. You’ll be going all around the quadrant, back and forth…… and back….. and forth again, in order to solve this mystery, with the help of your familar TOS crew.

Why is it ALWAYS the Enterprise? (TKA: Apple II)

The second game is arguably much more difficult than the first. The ‘Promethean Prophecy’ was released about a year later, for also for most of the computer systems of the day. The game has you in the role of Captain Kirk (not a simulator this time) and immediately starts you out under attack by an alien vessel. If you’ve watched *many* episodes of Star Trek, you’ll have an idea of what to do. This game, and TKA, will have you doing MULTIPLE save/reload sessions. Did I say multiple? Just checking.

It begins like any TOS episode. (PP: DOS)

Being a text based game, the graphics are pretty much non existent. TKA is the ‘prettier’ of the two games, but that’s not saying much.  There’s some nifty fade effects, red alert settings, and the turbo lifts are handled probably as best as they can be, but yeah, it’s text in what looks like it could be Windows 1.0. Be lucky there’s any color at all.

Shut it, Mr Spock (TKA: PC)

Depending on the system, you had NO to very little sound. Not even a theme song intro. Sorry audiophiles. Which leads me to “Why the hell should I even play this game?” Because it’s one of the few games where you can ‘tell’ people what to do (The late 90’s release Klingon Academy had a menu system close to this, but used numbers for commands).

We’re screwed (TKA: DOS)

Example:    To beam down to a planet, you need to

A. Leave the bridge by entering a turbo lift. B. Tell the turbo lift to go to Deck 7 C. Enter the transporter room D. Tell the chief to set coordinates to something. E. Energize.

Either of these games are NOT for the faint of heart, but there is a sense of joy and accomplishment (why are you laughing? I’m serious) that I get when I manage to get past that first attack sequence in Promethean Prophecy.  The smirk that William Shatner has on his face when he outwits a Klingon? Yeah, I get that too. When I was a kid it was either Star Trek: The Strategic Operations Simulator if I wanted an arcade experience, or either of these games if I truly wanted to pretend to really be in command of a ship in an episode of Star Trek.  Starfleet 1 is close, but more of a statistical kill X bad guys in Y days deal. These two games play as if they were an episode of the TV show.

Not looking to beat these? Give em a run anyway (via DOSbox) as they are both around the interwebz. Beam yourself into space. Swear at Spock repeatedly. Talk dirty to Uhura. Fly to Earth. Steal a shuttle craft.  Self Destruct. Play with a phaser, set course for Talos IV. (Note: These are all bad things to try) Admittedly, these games are for the hardcore Trek fan, or the text adventure fiend, but that’s the point. Squint, and we can pretend it’s JJ Trek! I mean Chris Pine Kirk, William Shatner Kirk, on paper   screen it’s all the same right? A total lack of voice acting or full motion video lets the imagination run wild. Regardless, both of these games together will provide several hours of excruciating fun, and if anything a look back with an education into how far Trek games have come. Fascinated? It’s only logical to give these the Fair Shake.

Paul Potvin

Paul Potvin was introduced to video games as a toddler by his father with an Atari 2600. Since then he's been an avid gamer and collector through the NES, SNES, and Playstation eras. He focuses on retro video game systems and titles but is eager to play anything. Paul lives in Massachusetts and can be followed on twitter.com/PotvinPaul

Read more of The Fair Shake

Screen Rant

The 10 best star trek video games (updated 2023).

Are you ready for an epic quest? Peruse the best Star Trek video games you can get.

• Release Date 2017
• Release Date 2001
• Release Date 2006
• Release Date 2013
• 9.74 /10 1. Editors choice: Star Trek: Bridge Crew (PSVR)
• 9.74 /10 2. Premium pick: Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force Expansion - PC
• 9.63 /10 3. Best value: Star Trek Encounters - PlayStation 2
• 9.67 /10 4. Star Trek - Playstation 3
• 9.12 /10 5. Star Trek: Legacy - Xbox 360
• 9.24 /10 6. Star Trek: Conquest - Nintendo Wii
• 9.58 /10 7. Star Trek Prodigy: Supernova - PlayStation 4
• 9.41 /10 8. Star Trek: Away Team - PC
• 9.87 /10 9. Star Trek Deep Space Nine: The Fallen - PC
• 9.92 /10 10. Star Trek: Tactical Assault

Star Trek is one of the most popular and well-known stories of all time. When it first premiered on television in 1966, there was nothing else like it. And since its birth, few other shows have even come close to matching the story in terms of scientific accuracy and appeal. Today, one of the ways that Star Trek lovers engage with the story is through video games, which can be more immersive than a show or movie. And the best Star Trek video games are accurate, they depict likenesses, and they come with an unbeatable plot. Here are some of our favorite Star Trek video game picks.

1. Star Trek: Bridge Crew (PSVR)

Star Trek: Bridge Crew was specifically developed as a virtual reality game, allowing Trekkies to interact with their favorite characters in a realistic, authentic way. If desired, players can operate in the co-op mode, designing a team of four to tackle their latest adventures. The team will consist of the Captain, Helm, Tactical, and Engineer as they travel through the galaxy.

Based on the 2009 Star Trek film timeline, the new ship, the USS Aegis begins searching for a home for the Vulcans. And, to do so, they head into Klingon territory. Players should keep in mind that the Captain’s role is the only one that displays the details of the mission. And the captain must communicate their latest endeavors to the rest of the crew in order to succeed.

The qualities that set this game apart from other Star Trek games are its dynamic gameplay and ongoing missions. Those who play Star Trek: Bridge Crew could really play indefinitely on a solo or co-op mission, which results in a captivating and valuable story. This game also stands apart from others in terms of its realism. As a virtual reality game, players should expect to feel completely immersed in the story.

• Plastation VR
• Bridge crew designed for VR
• Operate as a crew
• Ongoing missions mode
• Release Date : 2017
• Updated version
• Solo mission or multiplayer
• Good features
• Does not include next generation ship

2. Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force Expansion - PC

Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force Expansion is a first-person shooter game that is set in the fourth Star Trek television series. The game follows a number of different missions on the USS Voyager — some of which take place 70,000 miles away from home. The game incorporates a large number of original characters into the gameplay, and each character features the actual voice from the television series. So, you can expect authentic results from iconic characters like Captain Kathyrn Janeway and Lieutenant Commander Tuvok.

The game starts with holodeck training that the team fails. It shows the characters attempting to complete a task on a Borg ship. But the end result is that the majority of those characters fail, becoming captured by the enemy. After the holodeck training, the Voyager is attacked by an unknown force. And, ultimately, the ship is teleported to a mysterious place. Characters within the game have to attempt to determine where they are, and what threats lie ahead in order to keep the crew and the future of the Voyager protected. This game was an extreme success as far as Star Trek games go. In fact, it received an 86 percent approval rate, attesting to its production and bugless gameplay.

• Created by Raven Software
• Stranded in Delta Quadrant
• Set on USS Voyager
• Tour mode or multiplayer mode
• Release Date : 2001
• Rich colors
• Varied architecture
• Great single player option
• Nice graphics
• Really challenging end boss

3. Star Trek Encounters - PlayStation 2

One of the interesting things about the Star Trek universe is that it’s incredibly developed. Over the past 60 years, artists of multiple kinds have had the chance to add to the universe, creating new environments and challenges along the way. And this often comes out in video games. In Star Trek: Encounters, for example, gamers control five generations of ships including the Original Series ship, the Next Generation, the Deep Space Nine, the Voyager, and even the most iconic ship: the Enterprise. While some Star Trek games fabricate new worlds and destinations, Encounters features destinations that you’ve probably seen before. And you can even play based on real TV show events.

As you play, you can combat your enemies using a variety of different weapons like Phasers, Pulse Cannons, and Torpedoes. There are also three different modes in the game. So, you can play in a multiplayer mode, in the episode mode of the skirmish mode. The result is a captivating and realistic version of the Star Trek universe that is likely to keep you entertained for many hours to come. Finally, the game style is similar to that which you would find in a conventional arcade – or a shooter game.

• 5 generations of ships available
• Authentic Star Trek locations
• Choose from three modes
• Multiplayer options
• Release Date : 2006
• Fun process
• Can increase the challenge
• Reminiscent of the arcade
• Challenging gameplay
• Anticlimactic finish

4. Star Trek - Playstation 3

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A Python port of the classic Star Trek BASIC game from 1971

cosmicr/startrek1971

Folders and files, repository files navigation, star trek 1971.

I recently discovered the classic old BASIC game Star Trek from 1971, through a post seen on Reddit .

The post contained a version of the game rewritten in C-Sharp which I thought was quite good. I wondered if anyone had ported it to Python.

After a little bit of research, I didn't find a definitive version for Python.

This is by no means a definitive version itself; I just took the C# version and converted it to Python.

Improvements

There's heaps that can be done with this program. A lot of implementations used global variables. I tried to fix this by encapsulating them in a global object, but this can definitely be improved further.

Here is a list of possible improvements:

• Encapsulate everything in classes
• Include help/instructions
• new ships, celestial objects, etc
• new weapon types
• crew functions
• Easier navigation (using cartesian system maybe)
• Make some parts more 'Pythonic'
• ...Plenty more!
• Python 100.0%