The Classic PC Gaming Era (1977-1989) - Oids
That's "Asteroids" minus the "Aster," and it makes for an amazing game that's similar to Gravitar or Thurst, but with its own peculiar Choplifer!-style quirks.
RELEASE DATE: 1987
DEVELOPER / PUBLISHER: Dan Hewitt / FTL Games
PLAYABILITY TODAY: Fairly playable
BEST VERSIONS: Atari ST, Macintosh
I’ll save you the trouble of puzzling out this game’s title; it’s Asteroids minus the “aster.” Instead of flying around in space and destroying rocks, you’re dropped off by a friendly flying saucer mothership to invade planets with your V-Wing fighter and rescue the peaceful Oids from the greedy Biocretes. And while that basic setup might sound like Choplifter! by way of Defender (and quite similar to Atari’s 1982 arcade game Gravitar), the fact is that whatever Oids lacks in originality it more than makes up for in sheer playability. While the learning curve is a little steep due to the Thrust-style physics mechanics, once you master the use of propulsion, momentum, angle and gravity to steer your ship around, Oids really begins to click as one of those games that’s just plain fun to fire up and play.
Part of what makes Oids so great is the simplicity of the control system. Like Spacewar! and other inertia-based games, movement is accomplished through rotation and thrust with some regard for gravitational forces. If you start going too far in one direction, flipping 180 degrees and applying thrust to the opposite direction will slow you down. If you fly in a horizontal line, you’ll gradually arc downward due to gravity. This is important, because there are times when you’ll need to land to either refuel or to pick up Oids you’ve rescued from their toil in the Biocrete energy factories. While you’re flying, you’ll need to shoot Biocrete facilities as well as missiles or other aircraft. You’ll also run into repulsors that will push you backwards unless you take them out from a distance.
And then there’s the constant threat of crashing, which happens a lot in this game due to the difficulty of maneuvering around the terrain. Fortunately, you’re equipped with a shield that’s triggered by pressing down on the keyboard or joystick and which allows you to bounce off the ground. If you use the shield sparingly and recharge it when it’s not in use by pressing the spacebar, it can save your ship if you get into a tough spot. In fact, part of the fun of Oids is when you recover from those close calls and manage to keep your ship from going down in a fiery blaze while it’s loaded with passengers.
You progress by rescuing (or killing, oops!) all of a planet’s Oids and then reconnecting with your mothership to get blasted off to another world. While Oids comes with several increasingly difficult standard levels to play through, it also has a level editor where you can create your own challenges. Back around the game’s release window, publisher FTL Games even held a monthly contest for the best user-submitted levels.
The definitive version of Oids is the 1987 original on the Atari ST, but there is a 1990 Macintosh port that’s pretty much the same and which supports both monochrome and 16-color graphics. Later, the Macintosh also got a 2003 commercial re-release called Oids.X and even a sequel in Oids 2. Both were released under the publishing label Xavagus Prime Software by Kirk Baker, who’d worked on the Oids Macintosh port at FTL Games. Unfortunately, they were distributed as shareware and I’m not certain there’s a way to easily unlock them today since the developer is long-defunct.
As Our Series Continues…
In the coming weeks, we’ll talk about arcade action games, 3D games, flight simulators, sports games, gameroom games, puzzle games and so much more.
And while you’ll definitely see some titles from prominent North American publishers like Sierra On-Line, Infocom, Activision, Electronic Arts, Brøderbund, SSI, MicroProse, Lucasfilm Games, Epyx and Sir-Tech in the mix, you’ll also see references to games from the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Spain and Japan.
If you’ve missed the earlier entries in the series, which cover ASCII games, adventure games, wargames, strategy games and role-playing games, you can find the entire archive at https://greatestgames.substack.com.
Anything I don’t share here will be in my upcoming book, tentatively titled The Greatest Games You (Probably) Never Played Vol. 1. Subscribe to this newsletter so you won’t miss it!