Novastar Game Co.

[RBWhite]

I found a few of the disks from the Novastar Game Co..
It was like the scenarios of the month club with news letters for Steel Panthers, thats when I was a member or I should say when they were still around.

Does anyone remember them? & Where did they go?

Rick White

[Veldor]

ORIGINAL: RBWhite

I found a few of the disks from the Novastar Game Co..
It was like the scenarios of the month club with news letters for Steel Panthers, thats when I was a member or I should say when they were still around.

Does anyone remember them? & Where did they go?

Rick White

There were at least 50 Scenario Addon Disks for Steel Panthers that they put out. Each $25-$35 or so.

Found this on them:

"David Landrey worked for the IRS when he developed an interest in programming computer games. He always enjoyed changing the rules to games and seeing the results. This interest led him to design some simple games of his own. Chuck Kroegel was a school teacher and later an HR manager who enjoyed playing computer wargames. He had tried some of Landrey's initial creations on his TRS-80 and contacted him with some feedback. After exchanging some dialogue, they realized that they would make a good team and decided to form their own development studio. This was the start of Tactical Design Group (TDG), which would go on to design some of SSI's best early wargames.

TDG was founded in 1980 by Landrey and Kroegel. Their plan was to make two games: a Civil War recreation, which turned into 1981's, The Battle of Shiloh; and a World War II simulation, which became 1981's Battle of the Bulge: Tigers in the Snow. Both were published by Strategic Simulations, which would be the case for all TDG games. Although TDG remained a third-party developer, all of their games were published through SSI. The team worked on a dozen SSI games from 1981 through 1988, ending with 1988's Battles of Napoleon. Click here for a complete discography of SSI games published between 1980 and 1987.

TDG remained a small group through the years. Kroegel was the business contact and acted as a designer, developer and "artist." (Graphics were rather primitive in wargames, even by 1980's standards). Landrey was the main programmer, and additional programmers were added later to do ports, including David Walker (Atari), Dale Disharon (Atari) and Ed Haar (IBM).

In 1983 Kroegel "left" TDG to become R&D manager at SSI. He later accepted the roles of R&D Director at SSI, VP of R&D at SSI, and eventually President of SSI. (Later in his career he also served as Executive VP and General Manager of Mindscape and as COO of Westwood Studios.) However, he continued to work with TDG on their later releases while he was at SSI . He is most proud of 1986's Gettysburg: The Turning point , which he designed even though he wasn't technically a TDG employee at the time.

After Battles of Napoleon , Landrey started Novastar Game Company, which was a mail order wargame distribution business that also created add-ons to some SSI games (including scenario disks for Battles of Napoleon and a mega-campaign system for Steel Panthers). He eventually closed Novastar and continued working and programming in the games industry."

-- This article was based on an e-mail interview with Chuck Kroegel and Joel Billings

Of course that doesn't entirely answer the question except to certify that Novastar is no longer in existance and that the founder may be working for Westwood Studios etc...

[Veldor]

ORIGINAL: RBWhite

Does anyone remember them? & Where did they go?

Rick White

Something more official about them found on gamespot:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/1999/01/08 ... 52483.html

The MOD community destroyed them. [:@]

In the days of the Internet no one can make money selling MODS. Too many do similiar work and give it away free....

Probably to the benefit of all but unfortuneately to the demise of company's like Novastar...

[RBWhite]

Thank Veldor,

I was going through a box in my shed today and I bet I have at least half of what they did for SP1. They even had the first program to manage, add & remove all the scenarios

I always thought I was the only one buying from Novastar Games.

Thanks

Rick White

[Brigz]

Glad to see Dave Landrey's name come up. I did some development work for him many years ago when Steel Panthers was just getting ready to come out. Novastar was doing scenario bundles for Norm Koger's 'Tanks!' and Dave's 'Battles of Napoleon' and when Steel Panthers came out they started doing bundles for that. Dave only lives a few miles north of me. A good guy and a true pioneer of computer game design. His 'Battles of Napoleon' was years ahead of it's time and is still a good game... if you can find something to run it on. I have no idea what happened to Dave or even if he still lives in this area.

[wzh55]

I knew Dave Laundrey when he lived in Rocklin, CA and was heavily involved as NOVASTAR with war gaming especially Steel Panthers. I even designed one of the scenario disks (Bridge Battles) and did some of the research for him. Mike Wood, with MATRIX also worked with Dave during that time. Last I heard Dave's daughter had a terrible fatal accident and he moved away to North Dakota or some such place, and no longer had any interest in game design. I wish I was wrong, cause he was a swell guy.
[:(]

[RBWhite]

Thanks guys

I didn't know any of their names but I had alot fun with their work.

They were short and not very complects scenarios but very hard to beat.

I still have a machine running, it's a old compaq 486/66, with a Win95 upgrade from 3.11 & 420 meg. hard drive with SP1 & SP2 installed.

I'll miss it when it finally goes

Again Thanks

Rick White

[Hertston]

ORIGINAL: Veldor

The MOD community destroyed them. [:@]

In the days of the Internet no one can make money selling MODS. Too many do similiar work and give it away free....

Quite right, too. Are you saying that potential modders should either give up or charge, rather than release free ? Modders and scenario builders are the lifeblood of most gaming communities.

If the product is exceptional enough, people will pay. If it isn't, they won't. If folks want to make money, they should develop new games for the public to pay, and mod.

[ravinhood]

I too was affiliated with Dave Landrey for a couple of years as a beta tester for some of SSI's games he was working on. He is an excellent programmer, not only for Battles of Napolean, but, for "War of the Lance" as well. Still one of my all time favorites and for a commodore 64 game another well before it's time in AI mastery. If Dave is gone from the industry we have lost one of the greatest minds behind AI design, I never played any of his games that didn't provide me with hours upon hours of challenge. Lord I wish I could say that about todays AI designs. I still have loads of disks I bought from Novastar game company and can still recall some of the humorous chats we had on the phone when I was beta testing. The man is a genius.

That's why I'm looking forward to "Battles of Napolean" for windows. As long as they don't mess with the AI. heh

[Veldor]

ORIGINAL: Hertston
Quite right, too. Are you saying that potential modders should either give up or charge, rather than release free ? Modders and scenario builders are the lifeblood of most gaming communities.

If the product is exceptional enough, people will pay. If it isn't, they won't. If folks want to make money, they should develop new games for the public to pay, and mod.

Well the complaint usually goes something like "The average player cannot much tell the different between a well designed scenario and a poorly designed one". Debate all you want but to an extent its true by definition. If Novastar poored hours and hours into historical research and accurate OOB etc and then also made a fun and balanced scenario some "hack", no offense meant, who simply throws together a scenario and labels it STALINGRAD blah blah well its not quite the same thing.

Now as for my personal opinion... I'll take the free work anyday. I also don't like paying for a new RTS or Shooter game that is nothing more than a fancy mod on the same tired engine. At some point some of these games hardly even need a programmer. Its really just a massive MOD effort.

The internet is what really killed Novastar. Not so much the MOD community as they had stated. Before the days of the internet those who wished to "help out" could submit to them who would charge money and what-not at an attempt to be profitable in that venture. The internet just erased that method of distribution since now people can just post and therefore distribute the stuff themselves.

So its all good... Just not to the benefit of companies like Novastar....

[Veldor]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood
That's why I'm looking forward to "Battles of Napolean" for windows. As long as they don't mess with the AI. heh

Can you correct me if I wrong because I may well be. But as last I looked at the Battles of Napolean website I got the indication that they weren't "updating the code" but rather re-writing the game entirely which would imply they are in fact "messing with the AI" in quite an extreme way.

I also was not sure if they even had access to the original code or were in anyway affiliated with the original project other than as fans. I may be forgetting as I've lost the website link.

Could anyone who knows tell me? I'm quite curious as a fan of the original(s).

[Cmdrcain]

What I recall of Novastar was the selling of out of print SSI games,
IF I recall right I picked up "the Great War" Also there was "Tanks"
They also sold Gary Grigsbys Editor/scenaio Dik and Some Mods for Carriers at war? Pacwar? And The name Escapes me but Groigsbys Carrier game sort of like Pacwar but from POV of running actual carrier flight ops..