Star Trek, released by Mikro-Gen in 1983, is designer and programmer Derek Brewster‘s first commercial game.

It’s not a particularly good game – it has to be said – and is basically a copy of the infamous mainframe ‘Star Trek‘ games of the 1970s. Plus: it is highly unlikely Mikro-Gen actually took the trouble to get [ie. buy] an official license to use the Star Trek name (not to mention the use of USS Enterprise graphics), so the link to Star Trek in this game is highly dubious.

That said: if you can be bothered to learn how to play the game, it does hold some entertainment for a short while.

All games in Star Trek are randomly-generated, so are different each time, and are controlled using typed in keyboard functions. Without any instructions I managed to work out how to the play the game, and even blast a few Klingons. The commands IMPULSE, WARP, PHOTON and STATUS pretty much did it for me. And also: working out the 360 direction thing is crucial. It’s simple enough…

More: Star Trek on World of Spectrum

Star Trek by Derek Brewster – ZX Spectrum Commands:

Movement:
IMPULSE (then a number)
WARP (then a number)

Attack:
PHOTON (then a direction, 0-360)

STATUS (to return type: SHIP)