Long before Civilization, Railroad Tycoon and even Pirates, all the way back in 1982, computer programmer Sid Meier and friend ex military pilot Bill Stealey founded MicroProse Software – and for the next 11 years they went on to produce, as an independent company, some of the most iconic vehicle simulations and strategy computer games, still loved and played to this day.
MicroProse’s first game “Hellcat Ace” was produced over 2 months by Sid Meier and spawned a series of increasingly sophisticated 8-bit flight simulators.
In 1987 MircroProse was considered one of the top five game companies alongside companies like Electronic Arts and Epyx.
The mid/late eighties and early nineties saw release of some of MicroProse’s absolutely best and most recognised games. Games like Pirates, Civilization, F15 Strike Eagle and Silent Service.
In 1991 MicroProse created two new labels “MicroStyle” in the UK and “MicroPlay Software” in the US using these for publishing externally developed games.
In 1993 MicroProse merged with Spectrum Holobyte and formed MicroProse Inc.
With a lot of stuff going on in the mid to late nineties with layoffs, lawsuits and a cancelled acquisition by GT Interactive they still manage to rollout games like Magic the Gathering, MechWarrior and the UFO series (X-Com series).
Here we have some of the earliest titles from MicroProse including their very first “Hellcat Ace”.
In a later series I’ll show and tell a bit more from their later games.