Supremacy is a Risk-style turn-based strategy game I wrote in Macromedia Director and originally released in 2001. It supports both single player (against AI opponents) and local multiplayer.
You can find it in Flashpoint under the name “Supremacy”.
— This upcoming video may not be available to view yet.
I recently posted about Flashpoint Archive, a way to play old Shockwave (and other) content. I have just discovered another option DirPlayer.
What is DirPlayer?
DirPlayer is written in Rust and compiled to WebAssembly and is available two different ways:
As an extension from the Chrome Web Store. This is useful for visiting any old or archived sites and just automatically loading the Shockwave content.
As a single JS polyfill. This allows people hosting the content on pages they can still edit to make their Shockwave content available to any modern browser.
Current status
At time of writing, version 0.3, has just been released. I’ve tried Supremacy in it. There is good news, and bad news.
The good news is the game launches. The fonts don’t work properly, and some buttons do not have colours making them hard to read, but you can actually start a game. Sadly, there is then a runtime error.
But I’ve decided to add Supremacy back on to the site in its original location and included the DirPlayer polyfill, which I hope to keep updated as development continues.
— This upcoming video may not be available to view yet.
I started programming from a young age. One of the earliest programming projects I worked on that I was pleased with was a version of Risk called “Supremacy”.
Shockwave was a technology created by Macromedia as a sort of companion/competitor/successor to the then ubiquitous Flash1.
Back in late 2000, I managed to get access to Macromedia Director1, the authoring software, and started playing around with it.
This was back when I was learning much of my programming from books (there was less available on the internet then). So I bought “Advanced Lingo for Games” by Gary Rosenzweig (Lingo being a bespoke programming language created just for Director).
I made the game available on a website called “Shocklive!” on March 14, 2001 (and apparently released an update on March 18 with “no known bugs and better AI”).
Today, the game has been submitted to the Flashpoint Archive and should be available soon.
Random trivia
Since it has been almost 25 years since I worked on the game, my memory has gaps. But I do still have the source code, so here are some things I can either remember or have worked out.
The name
Early in development I called it “Domination”, which is why the main file for the game is called dom.dcr.
Risk mechanics
It really is a bare bones version of Risk (mostly because it was designed as a programming tutorial and at best as a jumping off point to do more).
It has the original 42 countries from Risk, and uses the base rule: reinforcements equal to a third of your country count. It does not have continent bonuses however. This makes it much harder to snowball and as a result games tend to take longer (see the video).
It also does not use dice - every battle just gives attackers and defenders an even chance to win. This, combined with the fact that it also has no cards further lengthens games.
The computer player names
The default computer players are named after famous fictional AIs:
Deep Thought - The super computer from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that determined the Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything was 42, and which went on to design an even more powerful computer, the Earth.
Orac - A sophisticated artificial intelligence from the British sci-fi TV series Blake’s 7.
Ziggy - The super hybrid computer from the sci-fi TV show Quantum Leap that runs Project Quantum Leap.
Zen - The master control computer of the Liberator, also from Blake’s 7.
Hal - The artificial intelligence and main antagonist in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
K-9 - The robot dog that was a companion in Doctor Who.
Title background
The background image is a Vietnamese girl holding an AK-47. I believe I sourced it from somewhere implying the girl was undergoing training to be part of some militia or military.
I still have the original copy and when I did a reverse image search I found it, with the description:
a Vietnamese high school girl practises taking aim with an AK-47 assault rifle during military training for students in Hanoi September 8 2000 high school and university students in communist ruled Vietnam take part in such training every year as part of a national defence programme"
Fonts
The main title font is Romulan Eagle. It sounds Star Trek based (which definitely makes sense with my interests at the time) but I honestly cannot remember anything about it. I have no idea where I found it. Possibly from the internet, possibly from a CD (CDs full of fonts were popular then).
The body font is Tahoma a standard Microsoft font which was apparently the standard screen font for Windows XP.
Also included in the project for some reason is Monaco, a font by Apple that was standard on Macs at the time. Which is a bit odd since I was using Windows at home and Acorn Computers at school.
Galaxia branding
Some time after the initial release, I added the message “Brought to you by Galaxia”. Galaxia is another game I developed (from which I got the online name I’ve been using ever since - GalaxiaGuy). I was working on a new version of Galaxia (which I tried a few times) when I first started this blog. The old Galaxia posts are still available.
Life on this blog
In fact, the game was available for a while directly on this blog. Sadly, this is no longer the case.
Screenshots
Some in game screenshots:
Opening in the project in Macromedia Director on a Windows XP VM:
All the links say “Adobe”. It was Macromedia at the time. It shall live forever in my heart as “Macromedia”. ↩︎↩︎
— This upcoming video may not be available to view yet.
The first game I ever did in Shockwave is now available on my site! It’s basically a Risk clone but with a fewer features and reasonable AI. Play Supremacy
