Alien Legacy

DOS Game Club

In 2119 the United Nations Seedship Calypso was launched. Headed for Beta Caeli, the farthest star yet attempted, this ark ship holds thousands of people in cryogenic sleep ready for colonising this remote system. Ever since the first interstellar war with the Centaurians broke out in 2043, the future of Earth and therefore the human race has been under threat. In 2135 the faster UNS Tantalus was launched with the same destination as the Calypso. Despite leaving years later, due to its faster engines it was projected to arrive 21 years before the Calypso would. But when the Calypso arrives and its crew is awakened, there is no sign the Tantalus was ever even here.

In Alien Legacy it's your job as head of the Calypso to find out what happened to the Tantalus, and more importantly ensure humanity's future by establishing a thriving colony far away from Earth. Developed by Ybarra Productions and published in 1994 by Sierra On-Line, this game offers a mix of management/strategy and narrative which is pretty unique.

Discussing this game with host Martijn ("Tijn") we have an interesting lineup of newcomers to the show for you! Sadly co-host Florian ("rnlf") couldn't make it, but he'll be back next time. First of all there's Tamsin ("TheLobdegg") who suggested we play this game. Then there's Chris, who's been a long-time fan of Alien Legacy and as Tamin's friend recommended it to them. And last but not least we have Brian ("SpaceGameJunkie") who got Alien Legacy on launch day back when it was originally released.

Tamsin is part of Hadrosaurus Software, who are working on Acronia, a newly made real DOS game we've talked about before in our episode about DOS Games Jam and modern DOS culture. They recently released The Aching, a Sierra AGI-style adventure game designed for Tandy 1000 computers and up. It's available on itch.io and Steam.

Brian has YouTube & Twitch channels dedicated to space games old & new and runs an active Discord community as well. Links can all be found in the list below.

https://www.dosgameclub.com/podcast/2023/04/ep79.mp3

[ download mp3 ] (115 mins, 132 MB)

We got help from DGC member console editing this episode. Many thanks to him and all who make this show possible!

RELEVANT LINKS:

* The Aching on itch.io and Steam by Hadrosaurus Software

* Space Game Junkie on YouTube, Twitch & Discord

* UK magazine scans by DGC member Pix

* Joe Ybarra on Mobygames

* Sierra was previously discussed in episode 8 (Quest for Glory) and episode 64 (Space Quest)

* We mention Starflight which was previously discussed in episode 17 and also Project Nomad which was discussed in episode 40