Empire: Wargame of the Century

Development

Many regard this turn-based militaristic strategy game the most influential strategy title ever released. The original was created in 1978 by Walter Bright and though he repeatedly tried to sell it to publishers, he didn't succeed until 1985, when Interstel accepted the game, and hired Mark Baldwin to create a graphical user interface (not a graphics artist at heart, Bright had been using various letters and ascii characters to represent units and cities)

Freeware release

Walter Bright has updated the game to work like a charm under Windows 95/98, and has released it as freeware - you can find the game and various information and historical facts at www.classicempire.com.

Awards

• Computer Gaming World
  • October 1988 (Issue #52) - Game of the Year
  • April 1989 (Issue #59) - Introduced into the Hall of Fame
  • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #8 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
• GameSpy
  • 2001 – #49 Top Game of All Time

Information also contributed by nullnullnull and PCGamer77