The Glorious History of Galcon
Okay folks - you asked for it (wait, you didn't) and here it is! The complete and unabridged history of Galcon! Starting from its beginnings as text-mode game, marching through it's difficult adolescence as a javascript game, and concluding quite nicely with what we have today.
1975?
A two player, single terminal Star Trek type game named WAR was written by an unknown author for the CDC-6600/6400 system. See the upcoming link for a bit more information on it.
1978
Inspired by WAR, DECWAR was one of the first multi-player space battle games. The link above is the homepage of this game and has more information. Here's a "screenshot":
Star @22-31 +4,+2 makes 301.2 unit hit on Panther displaced to 20-31 +2,+2, -72.1% * @22-31 +4,+2 301.2 unit N P -->20-31 +2,+2, -72.1% * 22-31 +4,+2 301N P >20-31 +2,+2, -72
1982?
Inspired by DECWAR, a game was written on a PDP-11 system in Kentucky called D.I.S.K. back in the early 1980's. It was created by Stan Bartsch. I don't have much info on this game, but it was updated and ported to Unix in 1985 ...
1985?
Where it was renamed to "Galactic Conquest". I was sent a copy of this game, and it appears to have similar gameplay to the 1987 version of "Galactic Conquest" that inspired me. It was last maintained by Byron Guernsey.
1986?
A game named "Stellar Invasion" written by BEARBYTE SOFTWARE inspired the 1987 edition of Galcon. I haven't been able to find any info about this game. So no screenshot on this one. However, it is a predecessor of Galcon, though I don't know if it was inspired by the 1980-1985 versions of "Galactic Conquest" or not.
1987
I first played this game in 1991 when I was 12 years old. The game was called "Galactic Conquest" and was written by Rick Raddatz. It was one of the first games I played. Other than some two player NES games, it was the first multi-player game I ever played. It could be played with up to six people, and was quite an enthralling good time with six people sitting around a computer. The "moves" were entered via the keyboard and were hidden from other players. Ships weren't visible during flight. All the same, it was a non-stop thrill ride of 80x25 text-mode goodness.
You can still play Galactic Conquest in all of its original glory by using dosbox.
1995
I knew I had to re-make "Galactic Conquest" sometime. It's graphics (being text) were rather dated, and I knew I could make something pretty swell. Putting it together was one of my first VGA games (which meant it had 256 colors, instead of just 16.) I used XLib and TurboC and was able to make it a hi-res VGA game "360x240" ooooh. Again the game was multi-player, and it was played by people gathered around a single computer. Since the controls were mouse based, the players each took turns in a random order. The game included fractal planet surfaces and dots representing ships in flight.
One of the classic games of my VGA "Galactic Conquest" was when I had a few friends to my place, one named Dave. Shortly before Dave arrived, my friend Jason and I tweaked the code so that when his name was entered, the game would automatically make all his ships move at 1/2 speed and his planets have 1/2 production. It took at least 45 minutes of him griping and whining about how he never could win before he figured it out. Sucker.
1998
With the arrival of the web, I figured Galcon could be re-made with the thrill of multi-player play on multiple computers. So I did, using javascript and images and whatnot, I whipped together the first multi-computer multi-player version of Galcon. Interestingly enough, all the "Web 2.0 / AJAX" stuff that people do today was to some extent a part of this game.
The game was pretty swell in that it included visuals of ships in flight, which you could mouse-over for some statistics about the fleet of ships.
1999
As an extension to the javascript/perl version of Galcon, I added a Java applet version so you could play via that. The graphics were much better - almost the same as my VGA version, except in higher resolution. This is the first version of Galcon that included triangular ship icons.
Unfortunately, tragedy struck and the server side perl script that I was using to run Galcon had some file locking issues that caused the webserver I was hosting it on to disable the script. This version of Galcon never saw the light of day again.
2000
... until I re-wrote it with PHP / MySQL! This was my first PHP / MySQL project and was quite a bit of fun. I made it to work with my Java Applet as well as added in a retro-web based-text-mode version of the game. I didn't have PHP for my website at the time, so I hosted the game on a friend's computer who had a static IP at college. Again, it wasn't around for very long.
2006
Now we get to the present. Galcon as we know it was an entry to the Ludum Dare 48 hour game development competition in 2006. This version was single player vs. computer opponents and swept the competition. Interestingly enough - the theme was swarms, which gave us that great swarming ship feel that the game has. I was all against the theme (themes are voted for in this compo), having made a game recently that used swarming techniques. But hey, it won. If it hadn't, I doubt we'd have the Galcon we have today.
On May 14, 2006, Galcon was announced the winner of the 8th Ludum Dare competition held April 28-30th. Phil swept the competition, with four 1st places and one 2nd place award.
You can download the compo release .ZIP or the .TGZ. You can read about the 48 hours of madness in my Ludum Dare post mortem.
2007
After the compo so many folks enjoyed it that I went on to make it multi-player, enhance the graphics, and whatever else I've done. It took a good six months after the compo to get the initial release out. Since then I've been enhancing it as I go along. Here it is! Have fun!
The original page ends here. What follows was added in 2026: every Galcon since, from Phil's release posts and the old galcon.com pages.
2008
Galcon on InstantAction
2008 · web browser · GarageGames' InstantAction
Galcon in the browser, on GarageGames' InstantAction service, with a story campaign of its own. That campaign came back years later as Galcon Legends.
Galcon for iPhone
July 18, 2008 · iPhone and iPod touch · App Store
A week after the App Store opened, Galcon was in it: one of the first multiplayer games on the iPhone. The full version had five missions (Classic, Stealth, Vacuum, Beast and 3-Way) to build your skills for the net game, and online multiplayer arrived in an update that August. A free Galcon Lite followed in September.
The port took five weeks, and Phil blogged it as "iGalcon" along the way:
And after a few more updates, with the polish on:
2009
The IGF Mobile award
March 2009 · Game Developers Conference, San Francisco
Galcon for iPhone was a finalist in the Independent Games Festival Mobile, and it won the award for Innovation in Mobile Game Design. Phil was pretty excited about it, as you can see.
His acceptance speech was something like: "Wow! Thanks! And thanks to my wife Nan for managing the community, my brother-in-law Tim for making the music, my goat Cuzco for keeping me entertaining and pulling me in a cart and to the whole #ludumdare community for helping me learn how to make games!"
To ride the buzz, Galcon went on sale for $0.99 for the rest of the week.
Galcon Flash
June 23, 2009 · web browser · galcon.com
Real-time multiplayer Galcon in Flash, played right on galcon.com: an ActionScript client, a C++ server, PHP rankings and Python bots.
Galcon Labs
October 2, 2009 · iPhone and iPod touch · App Store
Four totally different-feeling games built on Galcon: Billiards, where the planets move; Stealth; Crash, where ships fight in flight; and Assassin.
2010
Galcon Fusion
February 11, 2010 · Windows, Mac and Linux · Steam and galcon.com
Galcon for iPhone and Galcon Labs, fused and brought back to the desktop with HD graphics, a full interactive soundtrack, team games, achievements and rankings, a retro mode, and colorblind support. Owners of the original desktop Galcon got Fusion too.
Galcon Fusion for iPad
April 3, 2010 · iPad · App Store
Fusion on the iPad, ported in three days for the iPad's launch, with controls made for the bigger screen.
Galcon for Android and Palm
August 2010 · Android Market and the Palm App Catalog
Galcon reached Android on August 16, running on about seventy phones, and Palm's webOS phones by the end of the month.
2011
Galcon Fusion arrived on the Mac App Store on March 16.
Galcon Labs for PSP
September 2011 · PSP and PS3 · PlayStation minis
Galcon Labs went to PlayStation minis, ported and published by Beatshapers, the Kyiv studio behind BreakQuest and StarDrone. It had a campaign made just for the minis version, which unlocked the four Labs modes: Billiards, Stealth, Crash and Assassin. It played on both the PSP and the PS3. Being a mini, it had no online play.
The announcement promised what it always has: "Conquer the galaxy in under five minutes!"
Chickon
November 16, 2011 · iPhone, iPod touch and iPad · App Store · free
Galcon, with chickens. And robots. In Phil's words: "haha wouldn't it be funny if I made a version of Galcon with chickens in it ... I'll make it in a week." Six months later, it was out.
Chickon was a free-to-play romp of total silliness in the land of Chickontopia: hens on nests stand in for planets, chicks stand in for ships, and the enemy is robot chickens. Rescue totally stylin' roosters, use power-ups from bombs to drumsticks, and storm the robots' factory. There was a trailer. We don't talk about it much.
2012
Galcon 2 on Kickstarter
The Galcon 2 Kickstarter launched on December 7, 2012, for iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, Mac and Linux. It was funded the next January, raising $25,741, and backers were playing betas from February 2013.
2014
Galcon Legends
January 13, 2014 · Windows, Mac and Linux · Steam · February 6, 2014 · iOS
The InstantAction campaign returned, rebuilt on the Galcon 2 engine. Buck the bill collector unites the galaxy against the forces of evil, among them Crab Lord, the Banjo King and The Phantom.
Galcon 2: Galactic Conquest
December 5, 2014 · Windows, Mac and Linux · Steam and DRM-free · December 18, 2014 · iOS · Android
A demolition derby in space, and free to play. Clans battled for galactic supremacy, tournaments proved your skills, betting took Galcoins from the weak, ships came in triangles and trapezoids, planets in lava and ice, and Lua mods let players build their own games. The Galaxy Map followed in 2015.
2019
Galcon BOTS
April 13, 2019 · Windows, Mac and Linux · itch.io
A coding game: write a bot in Python, Go or Lua (or any language you care to port it to), then watch your bots battle each other live.
2023 – today
Galcon 3
Steam, App Store and Google Play
"Galcon 3: the third" was announced in October 2023 and has been built live on stream, with the Discord community playing along. Matches still take about five minutes. The campaign brings back Buck, the Banjo King, Crab Lord and The Phantom, and the galaxy map hosts team games for the whole community.
