''Carrier Strike: South Pacific 1942-44'' is a 1992

computer wargame A computer wargame is a wargame played on a digital device. Descended from board wargaming, it simulates military conflict at the tactical, operational or strategic level. Computer wargames are both sold commercially for recreational use an ...

Gary Grigsby Gary Grigsby is a designer and programmer of computer wargames. In 1997, he was described as "one of the founding fathers of strategy war games for the PC." '' Computer Games Magazine'' later dubbed him "as much of an institution in his niche of ...

and published by Strategic Simulations Inc. It is a successor to Grigsby's earlier title ''

Carrier Force ''Carrier Force'' is a 1983 computer wargame published by Strategic Simulations for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, and Commodore 64. ''Carrier Force'' was Grigsby's fourth game. While he had started developing games part-time while working ...

''.

Gameplay

Set in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, ''Carrier Strike'' is a

that simulates battles in the

Pacific Theater The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

between the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

and Imperial Japan.

Development

''Carrier Strike'' was designed by

for Strategic Simulations Inc. (SSI). It began development as "an offshoot" of '' Gary Grigsby's Pacific War'', which was in production at the time; the initial version of ''Carrier Strike'' was made during a week of free time on that project. Grigsby explained that ''Carrier Strike'' was his way of revisiting his early game ''

'' (1983). He told '' Electronic Games'', "I liked the subject matter and, given the evolution in computer capability and my programming skills, I wanted to refine it." ''Carrier Strike'' was developed with a modified version of the

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software i ...

from Grigsby's games '' Second Front: Germany Turns East'' and ''

Western Front Western Front or West Front may refer to: Military frontiers *Western Front (World War I), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (World War II), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (Russian Empire), a majo ...

''. He noted that the biggest challenge during production was adapting the games' interface to the new setting, and that the subsequent flight-deck interface originated from "a bull session at SSI". For the game's

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

(AI), he said that the subject matter made coding relatively simple, and that he had avoided letting the AI "cheat" in ways that many of his previous games had not. The score for ''Carrier Strike'' was composed by Donald Griffin of Computer Music Consulting. ''Carrier Strike'' was launched in 1992, prior to ''Pacific War''. Grigsby and SSI followed the game with the ''Carrier Strike Expansion Disk'', which alters ''Carrier Strike''s gameplay mechanics and adds new playable battles. Unlike the original game's retail release, it was launched via mail order.

Reception

According to M. Evan Brooks of ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'', ''Carrier Strike'' had reached sales of 15,000 copies by September 1992. The game was released in competition with ''

Carriers at War ''Carriers at War 1941-1945: Fleet Carrier Operations in the Pacific'' is a 1984 computer wargame by Strategic Studies Group for Apple II and Commodore 64. The game was designed by Roger Keating and Ian Trout. A remake, '' Carriers at War'', was ...

'' by Strategic Studies Group, a game whose highly-anticipated status drew more attention toward ''Carrier Strike'', ''Computer Gaming World''s

Alan Emrich Alan Emrich is best known as a writer about and designer of video games, who coined the term " 4X", contributed to the design of ''Master of Orion'' and ''Master of Orion 3'', and wrote strategy guides for video games. Before the rise of video game ...

argued. Emrich offered ''Carrier Strike'' a positive review, and ''Computer Gaming World'' nominated the game, alongside Grigsby's ''

'', for its "Wargame of the Year" prize.

William R. Trotter William R. (Bill) Trotter (July 15, 1943 - February 28, 2018) was an American author and historian. Writings Trotter's work covered a variety of genres and markets. His first published work was "Sibelius and the Tides of Taste" for '' High Fide ...

of '' Game Player's PC Entertainment'' called it an "engrossing and handsome simulation" that he "recommend d... most enthusiastically".

References

External links

* {{Gary Grigsby 1992 video games Computer wargames DOS games DOS-only games Naval video games Strategic Simulations games Turn-based strategy video games Video games developed in the United States Video games set in Oceania Video games set in Papua New Guinea Video games set in the Solomon Islands Video games set in the United States Pacific War video games