Galactic Wars 1

An early strategy game with real-time elements that was the first title published by Nihon Falcom.

Overview

Galactic Wars 1 (ギャラクティック・ウォーズ1) is a self proclaimed "fantasy simulation war game for people with brains who are afraid to use them" and is notable for being the very first video game published by Nihon Falcom. The company had previously been operating a computer shop called Computer Land Tachikawa since 1981 and the title was created by one of the store's regular customers, a programmer named Yoshio Kiya [2]. Kiya made the game in his free time on a Casio FP-1100 computer that he rented from the store and Falcom decided to publish the Casio title in 1982 and port the game to other platforms such as the NEC PC-88. Nihon Falcom's official corporate timeline states that Galactic Wars 1 was published in June 1982 but Yoshio Kiya has later stated that it was most likely published in December which early advertisements also suggest [6][7][8].

Only a limited number of copies of Galactic Wars 1 were ever published since they were only created when a customer placed an order for the game, with each package being put together by hand [3]. The humble release of Galactic Wars 1 would mark Falcom's entrance into the PC game industry and began their working relationship with Yoshio Kiya who would go on to be known as the company's star programmer and creator Falcom's seminal Dragon Slayer franchise [2].

Story and Gameplay

A battle is being fought in the year 2432 between the Galactic Alliance and an alien threat known as the Third Empire who is attacking Planet M23. The player must command a fleet of stars ships that are protecting the planet, two large crafts named "Falcon" and "Unicon" along with three smaller scout ships. Galactic Wars 1 is a turn-based strategy game where the players commands their fleets through different menu commands, such as deciding their ships' speed and direction. Once an allied ship comes into contact with an alien vessel, they will automatically attack each other and the winner will be decided by the ship's stats. During the player's turn, an in-game timer will count down giving the player a limited amount of time to issue commands to their fleet. After the player's time is over, the ships of the Third Empire will perform their own actions.

Trivia

  • Falcom's founder, Masayuki Kato, actually acquired the cover illustration for the commercial version of Galactic Wars 1 from his brother who was an artist. Kato found the piece in his brother's collection of drawings and simply asked him if he could use the picture for Galactic Wars' cover, it was not made specifically for the game [5].

References

  1. Galactic Wars (MobyGames)
  2. Preserving Nihon Falcom’s First Game by Takeshi Kanazawa (Game Preservation Society, 2017).
  3. Inside Lens - Game Preservation, the Quest (Game Preservation Society, 2017) - Talks about Galactic Wars 1 at 22:44.
  4. Falcom Package Exhibition by the Game Preservation Society (@tk_nz, 2017).
  5. Entertainment Station Interview with Masayuki Kato Part 2 Conducted by Fumio Kurokawa (2017).
  6. Potential release dates for the different versions of Galatic Wars 1 (Source) - Taken from the Game Preservation Society's "Ask the Legendary Game Creators" Panel with Yoshio Kiya and Tomoo Yamane (2017).
  7. Falcom Official Corporate History Timeline.
  8. Perhaps the First Advertisement for Galactic Wars 1 (I/O Magazine January 1983).