I am fairly new to the GOG community, but I have been around for a long time, playing games on computers with great enthusiasm since the late 1960s.

Out of 50 years of computer gaming my favorite game is Starsaga, in two volumes, Starsaga, Beyond the Boundary, which is Starsaga I and Starsaga, The Clathran Menace, which is Starsaga II. Out of all the games created during my lifetime of gaming, these games are unique. There is nothing even vaguely like them, and I just wanted to share. Approximately nobody knows about these games any more.

They are story rich, played on a large physical star map, which is set up with each of up to six players given a stone (made of colored glass) to mark their starting position and moves throughout the game. The games consist of exploration of the map, slowly drawing the player into what is going on in the galaxy as well as who and what the opposition is and what you and the other players need to do to survive, thrive and overcome the opposition.

The map is an abstraction of three dimensions into two and consists of triangles (called "trisectors") that may or may not contain a planetary system and space walls (only present in hyperspace). A turn consists of seven phases that are pre-ploted by the player. Moving from one trisector to an adjacent one costs one phase, landing on a planet for the first time costs 7 phases, and various activities on a planet have different costs in terms of phases. The player can borrow phases from future turns as long as at least one phase of the cost is in the current turn.

The games are RPGs in which each player chooses a character (one of six) to play. Each character has unique goals based upon those of the founding institution they originate from.

The games are rich Strategy games. There are both potential friends and enemies scattered throughout the galaxy, intent upon their own purposes. Most planets have a single kind of cargo they provide in exchange for other kinds of cargo. There are also shops selling various items, mostly personal and ship weapons and defenses. The cost of these items is various types of cargo but it is a large galaxy and using a shop other than the basic exchange of cargo offered by that planet requires actually landing on that planet and going to that shop. Some items only cost one item of cargo but some cost three, four or even more.

Each player starts with a ship that contains 10 cargo bays, which can be increased. Eventually players can obtain a drone that can be sent to any planet one has been to and carry out cargo trades, but shops can only be used by going there. It turns out that deciding which cargos to carry and which routes to take in order to buy which items becomes very strategic, like movements in Chess.

There is fighting due to both casual, random and focused enemies. Success in battle is a matter of obtaining personal and ship weapons and defenses prior to the battle. The computer determines the outcome of each battle by comparing the offenses and defenses, as well as abilities of the combatents. Abilities are obtained on planets by following various courses of study and practice and can be tactical awareness, inherent capabilities or non-combat but useful (like telepathy). The combat system, separate for personal and ship combats, is moderately complex but there is in-game knowledge of it to guide ones strategy.

The game is very story rich, which is carried out with physical booklets placed near to the map. Players determine their move in advance then go to the computer and plot it. The computer then calulates the path or decisions the player has selected and sometimes there are random events or questions or choices posed to the player. The rich description of the planetary system, available activities and strategic factors comes in the form of articles in the booklets. The computer indicates the specific articles to read and it is cheating to read any articles the computer does not direct one to. While this places the actual text outside of the computer, does it really matter if one reads it on the computer or off of it?

These games are from the late 1980s, and they are still fun and exciting to replay today. A single game takes about 60 hours, or 120 hours for both games. The game is social because very little time is spent at the computer entering plots and obtaining results. The time is spent back at the map with the booklets and ones notes, which means the hot-seat flows smoothly with the need to wait for another player being rare. It is easy to save the session so, for example, it is an excellent game to play two or three hours at a time, once a week over months. The entire status of the player and his or her ship and situation is available at any moment from the computer. The computer keeps track of position, equipment, inventory, capabilities and progress through the game towards objectives.

One of the key founders of the Starsaga game system was Andrew Greenburg, the guy who also created the Wizardry series of gaming. On the day Starsaga II was first released officially, and not wanting to wait, I called the company directly and was very surprised when the phone was answered by Andrew Greenburg himself. He was clearly very proud of the Starsaga game system and he should be, in my opinion. He indicated to me during the call that the company was going under and the third of what was intended to be a trilogy was already near completion and that he wished there was something he could do to ensure that the intended third game of the trilogy would be published. It was Electronic Arts who bought out Masterplay. EA reissued the Starsaga I and II games under their name, but the third of the series was never published. It seems unlikely now that it ever will be.

It would be great if GOG would carry these games. Certainly each would cost about $150, per game ($64 and $80 for Starsaga I and II respectively when I bought them in the 1980s). It would be tragic to have such an excellent gaming system for strategy and role playing be lost entirely. I would love to see games in the current era that play outside the computer on a large map in a social setting between players (not merely computerized board games). Board games are already out there in the $100 to $150 range and are doing fine. I have no problem with that price tag if the game is genuinely worth it.

Please share your reactions and thank you for your time.

That's way before my time and I never heard of these games.
I'd reccomend using the community wishlist to add a wish under the "games" section.
Look for the link "please add your wish" on the left part of the screen, under the search options.

Edit: According to the fourth post, they are already on the wishlist.

I used to be very intrigued by these games when I saw them on the shelf at Babbage's, with those giant boxes.

GOG could sell them but the most likely method to play would be to do like the abandonware sites and convert the pen-and-paper materials to something like .pdf format and have a program to keep track of the game board.

That's interesting, I didn't know these games. Maybe you'd like Starflight (https://www.gog.com/game/starflight_1_2).


By the way, I recommend voting here for both games:

Star Saga One

https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/star_saga_one_beyond_the_boundary

Star Saga Two

https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/star_saga_two_the_clathran_menace

Aww, cute... look how young EA was and already murdering promising companies :)

*sigh*

Sounds like a cool game with the classic form of DRM (You need a book; or you need to copy the book which costs as much as just getting the game :P ). For me a bit too retro though to actually muster up playing it.

Andysheets1975, I also saw the giant box containing the game (Starsaga, Beyond the Boundary) and was intrigued. At the time, $64, and that was marked down, was a lot of money for me... huge, but I was curious. After playing Starsaga I, I had no problem forking out $80 (full retail price) for Starsaga Two, The Clathran Menace, which was even a much better game than Starsaga I. This was in 1988 and 1989. At the time, just in the mall closest to where I lived, there were three, separate computer game stores.

Glaucos, I am very familiar with Starflight I and II, great games! Graphics is dated which is not the case for the Starsaga games (no graphics, even though the power of a computer is fully utilized).

Anothername, at the time there was no evidence, and nothing in Andrew Greenburg's voice or demeanor to indicate EA had anything to do with their demise. He spoke of them more as if they were helping them out of tough spot. I am not accusing them of actual benevolence, however. It was more picking the bones clean after market forces killed the company. Only now, in the last few years are computers able to have images in games that are as vivid as those conveyed by words back in 1988. There is one thing you seem to be mistaken about, however. There was no additional guide book or anything like that to buy separately. Everything including a small manual (mostly unnecessary because the game is very intuitive to play) and all of the booklets containing articles the computer directed players to, almost a thousand per game, was included in the original box. It would be possible to create other social, one room games with computer and each player with a tablet with cut scenes, to limit reading for those who are... disinclined to work that hard for their entertainment. I would very much like to see that happen, and thank you all for your comments so far.

Probably people who could make this happen, think it is too niche but I think there could be a market for a release with all three games in one package and the paper stuff in pdf format (or we would never see them here). Now the ten thousand dollar question is: Would it be feasible? All hinge$ on the holy profit after all.

(nodding) Yes, I have been giving that a lot of thought, Themken.

You see the thing is that the only thing niche about the games is that it involves booklets and reading. The games are great, but they are only excellent examples of a game system that deserves existence and flourishing right now. While back in the 1980s there were no options other than physical booklets, today's technology enables this as an entire branch of new gaming, consisting of a map that all players share, random locations that become known (but change every game) as any player discovers them, few but important decisions characteristic of excellent strategy games, a wide variety of directions and choices that make good, better and horrible decisions possible, and consequences of those decisions, every turn and overall over many turns and the entire game. As of Starsaga, the only way to achieve these things was with physical booklets, 13 or 14 of them, containing text to describe what was going on and the options with which the player at that point is faced.

There is no reason for a game like that today that there needs to be physical booklets or a physical map or a physical stone marking ones position on that map. In fact there are many ways in which current systems can be used to make a game like this considerably better.

1) There is no reason to limit the experience for landing on or making a choice on a planet merely text. There can and ideally would be images of landing (depending on choices) and the changing situation planetside. There does not need to be any text at all but in any case no reason for there to only be text.
2) In such a game system there are both short and long term decisions to work on, specifically what to do and in what order based on what is known by your character in that particular game.
3) The shared map can be online and very detailed with information filled in as it is discovered or made known to the character in some other way.

A discerning player might at about this point start saying to themselves, "Wait a minute. There are lots of games played with other players on-line where they share a map, make decisions and things happen. So what is so different about what you are talking about, Michael, that makes you claim it is an entirely different game system?

1) First, the Starsaga games are social, with the players all generally in one room, where they spend most of their decision making, calculation and turn plotting time. For a current game system of this type laptops might do but notebooks would be perfect.
2) Second and extremely important, the decisions and choices are relatively few in number. 99.9% of "strategy" games today are boring because of "too many". Too many ships, too many non-unique planets or other locations (not limiting the size of game for which bigger when avoiding "too many" or "repetitive" is a plus), too many research categories, too many items, too many abilities, too much money. In Starsaga, there is no money and I mentioned above that items cost a few cargos (like 2 or 4 cargos at the rate of 1 cargo per cargo bay). Ships start with 10 cargo bays (increasable, eventually, to 14) and the game has a dozen common cargo types (with some rare cargos that also take up a cargo bay each). For example an "Entropy Loop" in a shop on some planet might cost: 1 Radioactives + 1 Tools + 1 Medicine + 1 Food. If one wishes to buy an Entropy Loop then those four cargos need to be in four of that ships bays, at the time one is landed on that planet, visiting that shop and completing the transaction. Thus having the right cargos at the time of making purchases on that planet in shops there requires some planning. Deciding where to go and what to purchase and the sequence can be very strategic.
3) Parallelism. When playing hot seat at a single computer (for example MOO2 which is an excellent strategy game for human players only and AI off), one player makes his or her turn while the other players wait. Much better would be when the strategy for a turn takes place in parallel. Games like Civ allow this when online (not hot seat), when not at war. Starsaga differs from Civ by intentionally consisting of relatively large decisions relatively few in number rather than a plethera of small and continuation decisions, with an occasional large one. What goes on in parallel differs between Starsaga and other games like Civ. In Starsaga the time parallel is spent viewing an outcome or current situation (reading in the Starsaga case) and plotting out ones strategy for the next several terms consisting of which cargos to collect and where to go and in what sequence. The Starsaga player is always looking ahead two, ten or fifty turns for what one needs to accomplish. I am not criticizing Civ or saying time cannot be spent making decisions like that in Civ. I am comparing to clarify why the game system used by Starsaga is different than other games today and matters, but I have no intention to criticize or tear down any game. I will only compare with those I have played and enjoyed a lot, like civ.
4) Vivid, detailed images. In Starsaga, planets landed upon are very different from one another with (potentially) fascinating fauna and flora as well as intelligent beings to interact with and physical characteristics. Deep colors, huge vistas and dire situations are not uncommon. In Starsaga these images are all in the imagination as stimulated by the written text, but to apply this game system today the images can be images and scenes on ones own notebook or whatever. Most strategy games are visually unchanging. In Starsaga the images and scenes are wildly different with many unique experiences and environments.
5) A deep, rich plot along with side plots and quests. Starsaga is also an RPG in the full sense of the word. Side quests can result in a new ability, a rare cargo or a precious item.

My vision of such a game with current technology is a central computer (or distant server) and several players in the same room with computer notebooks (or something) interacting with each other and with the game universe having experience, examining the current map, or plotting out ones next, next few, or next several strategic turns.

It strikes me that several computerized aids for that strategic planning are possible to assist with calculating and recording ones strategic decisions. History can also be recorded in detail or summary. Starsaga did not have the benefit of any of that. Players were each issued an empty notebook (physical notebook with paper like for school) wherein they would record location, name, options and shop purchases available on each planet, as well as plots for ones next turn(s), lists of cargo one has, cargo one needs for intended future purchases at some location and trades required to be ready upon arrival. With each player having a notebook (computerized) for those things as well as map, specific location and events, the need for physical booklets, map and paper notebook are eliminated.

The setting of a game using this game system does not need to be in space, it can be on a planet, swords and sorcery, or many other possibilities. It is a gaming system, invented by Andrew Greenburg and the others that I am suggesting we emulate, while removing the need for a large box and paper notebooks in order to play.