Oberon is a space exploration game in a multiplayer universe. You, the captain, will go through the process of acquiring a ship and putting together a crew to explore a fictional alternate dimension starting on a planet almost identical to Earth. The only real difference is that in 1968, in this alternate dimension, things went differently. The hippies took over the world and starting with policies of “no nukes” took the population down a much different path.

Piloting a spaceship that uses a digital electronics corporation PDP 16 computer system based loosely on the BASIC programming language, you will use a series of ROM interfaces to pilot a ship around a galaxy of ten thousand stars and more than fifty thousand planets trading goods, mining for resources, crafting and fighting off pirates in possibly one of the most bizarre real time strategy games made since 1988.

The game is largely built around crafting, everything in the universe is player craftable using a very simpler interface but with complexity beyond comprehension. The game is sure to draw in players interested in resource management and creating things. It takes concepts from successful crafting games from as far back at Exodus Ultima IV and as recent as Star Wars Galaxies. What it does not do is create repetitive and mostly boring craft/grind style gameplay and instead focuses on mining, building, experimentation and delivery of goods to market.

The most interesting part of the game, at least to me, is the graphics style being based off of terminal and mainframe computers from the 1970’s. Just do a simple google search on PDP 8 mainframes and you will get the gist of what to expect in game. This is analog gaming at its finest!