The Colony (video game)
| Industry | Video game publishing |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | United States |
| Products | Video games |
The Colony is a first-person shooter crafted by David Alan Smith and distributed by Mindscape.
Initially launched for Macintosh in 1988, the game was available in both color and monochrome formats, whereas the MS-DOS edition supported only black-and-white visuals. The 1990 version for the Amiga platform introduced color graphics.
In contrast to earlier first-person titles that relied on pre-rendered or fixed-angle perspectives—such as The Sentinel and Phantom Slayer—The Colony provided unrestricted player movement with real-time 3D rendering. It also ranked among the pioneering 3D games permitting players to enter and exit vehicles.
Plot
Players take on the role of a marshal who responds to an emergency signal originating from a scientific outpost. Following a crash landing, the marshal's objectives include repairing their spacecraft, exploring the colony, and preventing an alien species from executing a plan to conquer the cosmos.
Development
The game's engine utilized 256 "pseudo-degrees" for rotation, enabling efficient data compression by representing each rotational position with a single byte. Bitmap images were produced using MacPaint, while in-engine tools were employed to design two-dimensional components such as doors and signage.
David Alan Smith initially created scenes on a Macintosh equipped with 128KB of RAM and a single floppy disk drive, programming with a C compiler adapted by Softworks. Subsequent development stages involved Megamax C and Lightspeed C compilers on enhanced Macintosh systems featuring 512KB RAM and a 20MB hard drive.
Reception
Computer Gaming World commended the combination of action and adventure elements but remarked on the game's steep challenge level. The magazine Amiga Format assigned it a score of 51%, critiquing its graphics as rudimentary and gameplay as monotonous. Conversely, Macworld honored it as the Best Adventure Game of 1988 and later included it among the Top Ten Mac Games of the Millennium. Author Orson Scott Card expressed criticism in Compute!, highlighting frustrating gameplay mechanics that penalized exploration despite impressive visuals.
Legacy
On June 6, 2023, David A. Smith made the source code for the MS-DOS, Macintosh, and Amiga editions of The Colony publicly accessible on GitHub, licensing it under the Apache License 2.0. Writer Richard Moss recognized the title as a significant example illustrating the innovative spirit within Macintosh game development.
External links
- Amiga Format review of The Colony at the Amiga Magazine Rack
Videos
- Articles with short description
- 1988 video games
- Adventure games
- Amiga games
- Classic Mac OS games
- Commercial video games with freely available source code
- DOS games
- First-person shooters
- Open-source video games
- Puzzle video games
- Software using the Apache license
- Video games about police officers
- Video games developed in the United States
- Mindscape games
- Single-player video games