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Remembering SimTex

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SimTex was one of the first game studios in Austin (not counting Origin, an independent publisher until the 90s). They produced only three games, but each of them has an important place in the history of strategy gaming. Here's the list in chronological order:

Master of Orion was the first 4X space game to break the "more complexity and more micromanagement is what we want/need" mindset. By reducing individual planetary management to a few sliders, they made room for a relatively rich ship design system and room for real strategic thought, long before PCs could support both.

Master of Magic is a unique blend of Civilization-style gameplay with the feeling of being a serious world-dominating-class wizard in competition with others in that league. Several good games have come from trying to duplicate parts of MoM, but generally they reduce the power of the wizard-player in some way, often making them a unit on the board. A currently pre-release title, Worlds of Magic, is the first serious attempt to improve on this classic without changing the feel of the game.

Master of Orion 2 is another seminal 4X space game. After a few years, PCs had grown powerful enough to handle a game with more detail on planets, more detail in ship designs and combat, a more interesting galaxy with space monsters and special worlds, heroic admirals and governors, and even customizable races. More recent games (like Galactic Civilizations 2 and 3) can be compared with this classic, and it definitely has some balance problems with the custom races, but it still has a place on the hard drive of every DOSBox-capable computer I own.

All of the SimTex games have some common qualities. They are groundbreaking and ambitious, extending the idea of what their genre could include. They are imaginative, coming up with ideas to excite players about what they can do in the game.

They were all also buggy in their initial releases, taking about 7 patches each to become reliable and balanced.

This was, in fact, what led to the end of SimTex. They had financial problems because needing to patch a game means needing to continue spending money on development even after the major sales spike is over (but if your games are not playable, people won't trust you the next time). Before the development of MoO2 was completed, SimTex was sold to Microprose; this seemed like a great idea because by becoming a studio for an established publisher they could concentrate on their games, not the business side.

And in fact, the renamed Microprose Austin did a bang-up job of realizing the computer version of the classic railroad business simulator 1830. Sadly, though this did not sell well enough to make a profit.

Overall the partnership did not turn out as well as both sides hoped. SimTex's ambitions for their next game, Guardians: Agents of Justice, were so far beyond anything done before, and in need of so much refinement, that the game was not really alpha-playable after a long development time, and Microprose pulled the plug. In the other direction, just plunking out profitable games rather than innovative ones didn't really keep morale going, and eventually the studio closed.

Master of Orion 1 and 2 as a bundle, and Master of Magic, are available as DOSBox packages from gog.com, and given their low prices I'd recommend giving them a try for yourself.

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