Edu-Ware's 1982 Traveller Inspired RPG

My Red Dwarf obsession continues. Today, for a split second I could have sworn I saw Rimmer holding up a copy of Traveller posing as the Space Core Directives book.


Not quite. Then for some reason I thought of an old Apple II game called simply “Space.” Space and its sequel Space II were some of the first science fiction role playing games on home computers. In 1982, GDW sued their maker, Edu-Ware, for copyright infringement of Traveller. The games were subsequently pulled from sale.

I’ve put together a short montage of Space II, complete with Apple II disk drive sound effects. Step into the YouTube wormhole for a trip back to these glory days of yore.


The game is about as much fun as this video would have you believe. I think I must have played it once before at a friend’s house, for about twenty minutes when I was twelve years old. Funny that Edu-ware picked up so much on the game in a game aspect of rolling up your character. For these shots, I had to go through several iterations of “Jamison” until one survived character creation. You might notice that one of them was deemed psychotic and immediate discharge was recommended. There are two game scenarios in Space II - in one, you’re a religious zealot trying to attract followers. In the other, you can enhance your previously saved characters by subjecting them to psychedelic drugs, with certain risks. Unfortunately I couldn’t get that second scenario to load. Edu-ware, they called themselves. :)