Inception of a DOS Game

2025-08-19

I made peace with the fact that I'll probably never actually ship a full game. However, one idea keeps coming back to me, and I really want to have a stab at it. It might well be one of those 'lifetime' projects, but at least I'll have something to do when I'm retired, right?

The idea

For me, the ultimate 4X game is Master of Orion 2. Games older that MOO2 were a bit rough on the contr

ol scheme, and newer games are too complex for a casual player.

Compared to other genres, there are benefits to making a turn based 4X game:

- Instead of a story, one can focus on world building (the fun part of writing).

- Game setup is procedural, this eliminates the need for many additional tools like world editors.

- Since there is no story line, there is no need for a complex scripting engine. But I might eat my hat on this one.

- Multiplayer netcode can be simple, you could even just do play by e-mail.

- It is possible to create a fun 4X game with only geometrical graphics. I would still like to have nice assets, but initial requirement on artistic talent is low.

The biggest hurdle to make the game fun, is creating a passable AI. Multiplayer is fun, but I think most people prefer to play these games agains the computer.

Next steps

I would like to make this a DOS game for two reasons:

1. There is a built-in audience for oldschool games.

2. DOSBox runs on almost all platforms where DOOM does. I don't want to be beholden to a modern platform.

There is also a DOSember Game Jam planned for the end of the year.

Three months, or three years even, is not enough to realize my vision. But a playable subset of the game is possible, namely the combat interface. I can also use the opportunity to set up the dev environment and get used to DOS development again.