Balance of Power

Trivia

Balance of Power was named #78 overall among the “150 Best Games of All Time” by Computer Gaming World Magazine (15th Anniversary Issue--November 1996).

Contributed by PCGamer77 (3025) on May 02, 2008.

For each country in the game, there's a "subversive" party/organization listed for it. For the United States, it was "Democrats".

This was one of the earliest Windows-only games. You'll notice how similar the game is to the Mac interface (and you'll know why Apple sued Microsoft over the similarity!). It came with a Windows "Run Time" version for users without Windows/286 so they could just play the game.

The manual actually contained a bibliography... how many games today can claim that?

For both BOP and BOP: 1990, Chris Crawford wrote this in the Acknowledgements section:

"I conceived, designed, programmed, developed, and tested this game. Yet, no such project is truly single-handed; every designer owes a debt of gratitude to a large number of people who lent him their advice, their assistance, and their sympathy."

He credits his wife, Kathy, for consulting him about all "big decisions" (he mentions helping with the images and posing for the pic of an anti-nuke protester).

This game was probably one of the first to include a "Nightmare" level. :)