Call me Merlin the way I seem to be traveling backwards in time.

I’ve already written about Warp to Sector 1, the TradeWars 2002 homage that I had been waiting decades for. Although it operates as it’s own executable, it gives off that old-school CRT or terminal emulation vibe that I find not just charming in The Year of our Lawd 2026, but kind of comforting as well. It’s lo-fi, doesn’t require a massive, power-sucking video card, and is so simple to understand that I could sit anyone down in front of it and they’d hit the ground running like a long-term player in no time.

Apparently this triggered something in my lizard brain because I found Riftborne, a sub $10 game that is also reminiscent of the Age of the BBS not just in appearance or execution, but because it literally runs in a command terminal window.

Riftborn is a 4x game that you play mainly with a keyboard if you’re old school, but with a mouse if you don’t want a headache. It’s entirely menu-driven and presents itself primarily in text. What little graphics exist are good ole fashioned ASCII the way mom used to make.

Don’t let the simplistic presentation fool you: this is a doozy of a title. Reviews say that it could scratch an itch if it weren’t so cryptic. Truth be told, it is lacking in a lot of hand-holding that Gamers of a Certain Age require these days, but for us Old Guard, things might start out with little explanation but quickly reveal themselves through trial and error.

Oh boy get ready to error! We play as a star empire in it’s infancy, alongside other similar empires. We start with nothing except 1000 units of four different resources, a planet, and a dream of stellar conquest. First order of business: build a shipyard, then a scout, then undertake a spying mission. Right out of the gate it’s choosing violence, and I don’t think there’s any diplomacy in sight.

Everything about this game can be found in almost every 4X game since time immemorial, but the presentation and some of the mechanics differ. For example, there is upkeep for fleets, but if a fleet is idle, it’s literally sucking the resources out from under you until you find that your ships are vanishing. Why? Production of a key upkeep element, Astra, needs to outpace the amount being spent to maintain your ships. If you forget to keep Astra in the black, your fleet will just *poof*, vanish.

This is really the kind of game for people who like to stare at a series of menus for 15 minutes at a time before making a single decision. Like Warp to Sector 1, I’m really digging the vibe here. I’ve been shying away from overly kinetic games for a while, now, in favor of games where I can take my time (open world survival box games, for example) or, more specifically, games which offer depth but lack speed. Riftborne is shaping up to be a game like that, although I’m still waiting for the results of my initial spy mission and the fallout that surely follow.

Oh, I almost forgot: although this is a single player game, it can be played on private servers via SSH, or on public servers with up to 120 other psychotic gamers who find this kind of game presentation to be really awesome.