Two years ago, vintage collector, software developer, and YouTuber The 8-Bit Guy released his self-produced commodore 64 game to the public, titled Planet X2. The game marked the first time a real-time strategy game has ever been produced for the platform. Now, the old-school computer hardware enthusiast is making his way to the MS DOS platform with the sequel: Planet X3.
David Murray -better known as The 8-Bit Guy on YouTube- has been a pillar of the classical computer community on YouTube since 2011. Most of his videos revolve around collecting vintage computers from the mid 70's and the early 80's, but what sets his videos apart from other vintage computer videos on was his uncanny knowledge of old-school software development. His knowledge ended up being revealed in greater detail, when he held a talk at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo in 2017. In it, he went over the challenges of making a fully functioning Commodore 64 game in modern times. That game was his one-of-a-kind RTS game Planet X2.
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| The Black & White version of Planet X3, running in 640x300 monocrome. |
David's game about humans and aliens in a race to colonize a planet has received critical acclaim from the Modern Retro community, and is considered the first game of its kind on the Commodore 64 platform. Since then, popular demand has pushed an inevitable sequel - This time, on really old IBM compatible PCs- which was released in February of 2018 under the name Planet X3.
If you plan to play this game without an emulator like DosBox, don't expect to be able to launch this type of game in your command prompt, or even in any windows compatibility modes. You need a really old-ass PC to effectively play a game like this. We're talking older than me PCs here. To give you an idea of how old the compatible hardware has to be in order to play this game, the system specs listed on The 8-Bit Guy's website read like this:
Minimum System Requirements for CGA/Tandy Version:
Minimum System Requirements for VGA Version:
- 8088 @ 4.77 Mhz (recommend 8 Mhz)
- 256K of RAM
- 360K or 720K floppy, or install on hard drive.
- PC-Speaker, Tandy, or Ad-Lib sound
- 8088 @ 10 Mhz (recommend 286 at 10 Mhz)
- 256K of RAM
- 360K or 720K floppy, or install on hard drive.
- PC-Speaker, Tandy, or Ad-Lib sound
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| Planet X3 being played in Tandy Hi-Res mode, 640x200 in 16 colors. |
Most of you may have only heard of VGA, but this game is designed for PCs so old, it's compatible with video standards that date back to 1984, like EGA and even CGA; both of which were proprietary video standards of some of the first IBM-PC clones. You can read more about those here.
Not only that, but some proprietary color modes only available on select computers or monitors has been listed as compatible on Murray's website, including support for Hercules 720 x 350 black & White, all the way up to both Plantronics and tandy hi-res 16-color modes.
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| VGA mode with 256 colors. |
Interestingly enough, one thing that sets this game franchise apart from any other in the RTS genre is that you don't actually need a mouse to play it. In fact, Planet X2 didn't even have the option of using a mouse, because there simply wasn't enough RAM in a stock Commodore 64 to do it. Everything is playable using keyboard commands, but Planet X3 distinguishes itself from its predecessor by giving players the option to use a mouse at all.
You can buy your own copy of Planet X3 directly from The 8-Bit Guy's website, at prices ranging from $15 to $50. There, you have choices ranging from digital, and even physical copies, with classically styled boxes - even autographed, full-color manuals.
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