Starflight is one of those things that evoke memories of adventure and exploration for a number of us that played entirely too many hours of it, back in the day. Not only that, it inspired so many of us author types in the way we create and deliver our stories.

That being said, it was a confusing and exciting moment when Rod McConnell and Greg Johnson, two of the original creators of the game said yes to the idea of an anthology and a series of novels in the Starflight Universe.

Not sure what Starflight is?

What is Starflight?

The brief description below is taken from the fan ran Starflight page.

In the simplest definition Starflight is a computer game for the IBM PC developed by Binary Systems which started development in 1983, and was released in 1986 “after 15 man years” for the cutting edge video technologies of the time, namely black-and-white, Hercules monochrome, composite TV, 4-color CGA, and 16 color Tandy graphics.   Later a second version was released with EGA graphics support and versions were ported to the C64, Amiga, Atari ST and the Sega Genesis platforms.  Three years later two of the five original developers went on to create the sequel Starflight 2: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula.

Unlike other archaic DOS-based games of the time, you do not have to memorize a huge number of keys since all functions can be executed by using convenient menus controlled by the keypad.  All events occur in pauseable real-time, events such as ship combat, lifeforms moving or attacking, or even just time passing only takes place when you are outside of a menu, giving players the ability to think before they act and removing the stress of figuring out controls under pressure.

But still this doesn’t answer the question of “What is Starflight?”  Starflight is an open ended space simulator of 269 star systems and roughly 800 planets.  Is also a role-playing game considering your ships strengths are improved as you spend resources on crew training, equipment purchases, and obtain specialized artifacts.  It is an adventure game set in space with a sophisticated artificial intelligence system, alien races with distinctive language traits, personalities, and behaviors.  It is a simulator of a huge universe requiring greater and greater amount of fuel to travel to distant locations.  It contains open-ended scripting with chains of hints leading players varied and different conclusions about meanings and histories and events.

The game starts you off in Starport, a torus-shaped space station orbiting Arth, the last surviving colony of the Old Empire and the only planet with any form of human life.  A thousand years ago a great empire spanned the stars combining almost all the known alien races in a cooperative alliance a.k.a. Star Trek.  Now after a great dark age, you command a spaceship built with the pinnacle of Old Empire technology and set out to explore the galaxy.  Within a short time, your true mission begins to unfold as it is discovered that not only Arth’s sun but all the stars in the region are systematically exploding, vaporizing planetary ecosystems, and slowly and methodically extinguishing all life in the galaxy.

Breathing new life into a PC classic

That’s right, we’ve assembled a team of amazing authors, most of which are also fans of the game. As the deadline nears, the team is getting fired up and the activity within the author group has increased exponentially.

Stories are beginning to roll in, and I for one can vouch for some fun and exciting tales being told. Everything from smugglers, to Interstel Police, to cocky jock captain’s, and colony supply runs are on the table for the first ever anthology in the Starflight Universe.

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And without further adieu, I give you the cover for the first of many titles in the Starflight Universe.