Balance pc game code#
At the time this was a non-trivial decision, as there were no development tools for the Mac, and programmers had to buy an Apple Lisa to write code for the platform. Ĭonsidering the Atari platform a lost cause, Crawford began looking at the new 16-bit platforms that were just coming to market he dismissed the IBM PC as too crude, the Amiga as likely to fail for business reasons, and thus chose the Macintosh as the platform to develop on. Crawford cited Bob Dylan's " Blowin' in the Wind" as an emotional inspiration to the game. Īfter considering a sequel to Eastern Front or a political game about the Inca empire, he eventually decided to write a cold war "game about peace".
His ample severance was enough to allow him to write a new game as a freelancer. In March they laid off the majority of their staff, including Crawford. By early 1984, Atari was rapidly going bankrupt due to the effects of the video game crash of 1983. His smash hit Eastern Front (1941) made him one of the few game authors known by name, and helped ensure later releases were also successful to a degree. We do not reward failure."Ĭrawford had made a name for himself during his years at Atari, Inc. And no, there is no animated display of a mushroom cloud with parts of bodies flying through the air. In Balance of Power, such a war ends the game instantly, with the following message: "You have ignited a(n accidental) nuclear war. In Geopolitique, such wars were actually fought in-game, after which the game continued. Likewise, in both games brinkmanship may result in a global war. In both games, backing down in a negotiation results in a loss of prestige, which will reverberate politically. One difference from the earlier game is how negotiations are resolved. This core mechanic is similar to that of Bruce Ketchledge's 1983 game Geopolitique 1990, published by SSI. The player then gets a chance to initiate actions, and deal with the opponent's responses. Each response is then met with a counter-response, which may vary from backing down to escalation.
Responses may range from no action to diplomatic notes to the other superpower, to military maneuvers. Each turn is one year long at the beginning of each year, the player is presented with a set of incidents and crises in various countries around the globe and must choose a response to each one. The player may choose to be either the President of the United States or the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and must lead the chosen superpower for eight years, seeking to maximize "prestige" and avoiding a nuclear war. It has been named by Computer Gaming World as one of the most innovative computer games of all time.īalance of Power was successful on the Mac, and combined with ports it ultimately sold over a quarter million units. It was praised for its inventive non-action gameplay that was nevertheless exciting and distinct. It was widely reviewed after its release, including an extremely positive review in The New York Times Magazine. His 1984 announcement that he was moving to the Macintosh platform to work on a new concept generated considerable interest. This creates brinkmanship situations between the two nations, potentially escalating to a nuclear war, which ends the game.Ĭrawford was already well-known, especially for Eastern Front (1941). The player can choose to respond to these events in various ways, which may prompt a response from the other superpower. During each yearly turn, random events occur that may have effects on the player's international prestige. The goal is to improve the player's country's standing in the world relative to the other superpower. In the game, the player takes the role of the President of the United States or General Secretary of the Soviet Union.
Balance pc game windows#
Macintosh, MS-DOS, Windows 1.0, Amiga, Atari ST, Apple IIGS, MSX, PC-88, PC-98īalance of Power is a computer strategy game of geopolitics during the Cold War, created by Chris Crawford and published in 1985 on the Macintosh by Mindscape, followed by ports to a variety of platforms over the next two years.