VGA Planets Games Archive

Guernplan ran eleven games of VGA Planets for a group of friends in Guernsey. This is everything that survived it.

11 games · 12 players · 2002–2008

VGA Planets is a turn-based strategy game for up to eleven players, each running one race with its own economy, its own ships and its own way of cheating. Nobody plays it in the same room. The host produces a turn file per player, everyone plays their turn offline and sends the result back, and the host runs the next turn when the last of them arrives — which is why a single game here takes between a month and several years.

Guernplan was the site that held our games together: a message board, a scoreboard, the current situation report, the turn drop, and every download and strategy guide anyone needed. Players logged in with their race's friendly code, which is as authentic a piece of 2000s security design as you will find.

The Guernplan site: a black page with green terminal type, a message board down the middle, navigation and downloads on the left, and a situation report, score chart, friendly-code login and list of old games on the right. — Guernplan during game 11. The turn counter, the score chart and the situation report all read live from the host, and the last ten games are listed in the corner. The messages beneath run from February to June 2008 and are mostly people apologising for not having sent their turn.Screenshot, June 2008

What survived

The site is long gone. What is left is the directory it read from: a title, a write-up, a scoreboard and a ptscore ranking for each of the eleven games, most of a set of star maps, and a score chart for every one. Some of those charts were annotated by hand at the time, which makes them the only narrative record of what actually happened —the fall of Taurus, the West War begins.

The games

Game 1The Cyborg Wars52 turns5 players2002
Ahead at the endCyborgSteve
Game 2Lizard Codebreakers18 turns6 players2002
Ahead at the endPrivateerJim
Game 3Lizards vs Evil Empire38 turns7 players2003
Ahead at the endPrivateerJim
Game 4Between a Robot and Federation50 turns5 players2003
Ahead at the endFedJim
Game 5Crush the Computer42 turns6 players2003
Ahead at the endCrystallineSteve
Game 6Team Battle32 turns5 players2003
Ahead at the endLizardSteve
Game 7You will be assimilated!36 turns9 players
Ahead at the endCyborgJim
Game 8Birdman vs Lizards43 turns5 players
Ahead at the endFedEd H
Game 9And then there were three46 turns6 players
Ahead at the endFedEd H
Game 10No title survives49 turns6 players
Ahead at the endEmpireJim
Game 11No title survives27 turns5 players2008
Ahead at the endCyborgEd H

Who played what

Every player against every game, by race number. Three players signed some of their games under another name — Ed as Clayton, Ed H as Ed2 and Murdock, Conrad as Con — and are filed here under one, with the other names in brackets and printed against the games that used them. Dominate was a computer opponent that filled empty seats, and by the last game it was covering for people who had stopped playing. A cup marks the player who took the game: the top of the last scoreboard the host printed.

Which race each player took in each of the eleven games, by race number, with a cup against the player who took each game
Player	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Games
Jim	The Missing Colonies of Man	The Privateer Bands— top of the last scoreboard	The Privateer Bands— top of the last scoreboard	The Solar Federation— top of the last scoreboard	The Solar Federation	The Missing Colonies of Man	The Cyborg— top of the last scoreboard	The Bird Men	The Bird Men	The Evil Empire— top of the last scoreboard	The Privateer Bands	11
Jeff	The Rebel Confederation	The Evil Empire	The Evil Empire	The Missing Colonies of Man	The Cyborg		The Missing Colonies of Man	The Lizard Alliance	The Cyborg	The Bird Men	The Solar Federation	10
Ed Halso Murdock, Ed			The Robotic Imperium	The Robotic Imperium	The Bird Men	The Privateer Bands	The Robotic Imperium	The Solar Federation— top of the last scoreboard	The Solar Federation— top of the last scoreboard	The Robotic Imperium	The Cyborg— top of the last scoreboard	9
Steve	The Cyborg— top of the last scoreboard	The Lizard Alliance	The Lizard Alliance		The Crystal Confederation— top of the last scoreboard	The Lizard Alliance— top of the last scoreboard	The Evil Empire		The Fascist Empire	The Fascist Empire		8
Edalso Clayton	The Bird Men	The Crystal Confederation	The Crystal Confederation	The Crystal Confederation	The Privateer Bands	The Fascist Empire	The Bird Men					7
Alex							The Solar Federation	The Privateer Bands	The Privateer Bands	The Solar Federation		4
Scott								The Rebel Confederation	The Missing Colonies of Man	The Rebel Confederation	The Missing Colonies of Man	4
Conradalso Con		The Rebel Confederation	The Rebel Confederation	The Lizard Alliance								3
Jay	The Evil Empire	The Solar Federation	The Solar Federation									3
Nezza					The Rebel Confederation	The Rebel Confederation	The Lizard Alliance					3
Glenn							The Fascist Empire				The Rebel Confederation	2
Stu							The Rebel Confederation					1
DominateAI	The Fascist Empire	The Missing Colonies of Man			The Missing Colonies of Man							4
ComputerAI								The Missing Colonies of Man				1

The eleven races

Every race in the game, what makes it worth taking, how often it was taken across the series, and how often it finished a game in front. The colours are the ones the client drew each race's line in, lifted from the score charts.

1The Solar FederationSuper Refit, and crews that fight well above their weight9 played · 3 led
2The Lizard AllianceGround assault at thirty to one, and hulls that keep going past the point anyone else explodes6 played · 1 led
3The Bird MenCloaking, and Super Spy — they read everybody else’s mail6 played · 0 led
4The Fascist EmpirePillage and glory devices: a raider, never a builder6 played · 0 led
5The Privateer BandsRob Ship, and a tow home with whatever they took7 played · 2 led
6The CyborgAssimilation, and the chunnel — a fleet crossing the map in one turn5 played · 3 led
7The Crystal ConfederationWeb mines, and a taste for the desert worlds nobody else can hold4 played · 1 led
8The Evil EmpireDark Sense, and hulls big enough to end most arguments5 played · 1 led
9The Robotic ImperiumMinefields laid four deep, and carriers that build their own fighters4 played · 0 led
10The Rebel ConfederationGround attack that takes a planet in one turn, and colonies where there should be none9 played · 0 led
11The Missing Colonies of ManCheap fighters, and a reactor that makes fuel out of nothing9 played · 0 led

Reading the archive

Each game has its scoreboard, its chart and its map together on one page, with the players named against the races they held. Where the files disagree with each other, both are shown and the disagreement is noted; nothing here has been tidied into a story it does not support. No game records who was declared the winner, so none of these pages claims one — only who was ahead when the last scoreboard was printed.

The strategy guide the site linked to survived as well: One-Eyed Willy's guide to a good game of Planets, written by Steve Andrews in 2005 and linked from the sidebar of every page.

Guernplan — A VGA Planets Game