The New Spasim

The first version of Spasim, subtitled "An Investigation of Holographic Space", was launched in March 1974. A few months later, Bowery set out to rewrite the game, with the assistance of metallurgy student Frank Canzolino. At first, the pair optimized the 3D graphics of the game, but Bowery, inspired by the concept of positive sum games, or cooperative games, decided to delete the entire game code from the mainframe and start over, building in strategy and resource management elements into the base game instead of adding them on top. Bowery designed the new version to penalize over-reliance on combat and incentivize cooperation as part of a philosophical stance on what he believed actual space expansion would require. The second version of Spasim was developed over the course of three days, and the pair released it in July 1974. Bowery released occasional updates to the game until he graduated; afterwards it was maintained by Steve Lionel, who added a tutorial on navigating in polar coordinates.

Becoro # 2023-09-10 14:01:24 - source

For the PLATO system.
1 to 32 players simultaneous.
After destroying [[gameid:160134 Spasim]], Jim Bowery worked with Danny Sleator to create a new version of the game requiring much more strategy, much less war and much more effort to keep planets stable. Cooperation was required to make it to the most difficult to get resources. If players could manage it, it was possible to win the game. No word if anyone ever won.

New Spasim was not nearly as popular as the old version had been. It had about half as many players as the original.

# 2006

display: raster

remake of
Spasim (PLATO)