Two people could fight a space battle on an Apple II, then choose a driving game or pinball from the same package. California Pacific sold Bill Budge’s Space War as part of his Trilogy. Its advertisement placed Night Driver, Pinball and Space War together, while listing his Space Album separately. The similar package names conceal different collections.
A duel you could buy
The Washington Apple Pi Journal was already recalling the trilogy in its July–August 1981 coverage of Raster Blaster. This was a commercial package circulating among home-computer users, rather than a program encountered only through access to a research machine.
That change is worth following alongside the earlier Spacewar! story. Getting the game into a home meant packaging it, selling it and making it work with a buyer’s machine. The publisher’s advertisement tells us how it offered the collection; it doesn’t tell us how many people bought it.
A player notices the gravity
Writing in Hardcore Computist no. 5, Michael Decker praised the two-player battle while reporting that gravity affected one ship more than the other. He also disliked the disk’s DOS 3.2 format. His account joins play and the practical experience of owning the software: a game could remain enjoyable while giving its owner something to complain about.
The gravity complaint is Decker’s observation, not a defect independently reproduced here. It raises a useful design question: if two opponents expect equivalent ships, what happens when one responds differently? Deliberate differences need to become understandable rules; an unexplained difference may feel unfair.
A home-computer comparison
The two-player duel and gravity make this a useful comparison with Spacewar! on the PDP-1. They do not, by themselves, establish whether Budge followed that program directly or encountered an intermediate adaptation. Keep that route open until a creator account or stronger contemporary evidence establishes it. The Apple II game merits attention as its own release, not as a promise of identical rules or code.
Sources
- California Pacific advertisement in the original Ultima manual, final page: package contents and publisher presentation.
- Washington Apple Pi Journal, July–August 1981: contemporary mention of the earlier trilogy in the Raster Blaster review.
- Hardcore Computist no. 5, p. 13: Decker’s account. He calls the game Space Wars; the publisher’s advertisement uses Space War.
Explore the earlier game
Our Spacewar! study follows the original duel through its movement, design and cultural setting.