The Halley Project:
A Mission in our Solar System
| Developer: Tom Snyder Productions | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Mindscape | Sound: |
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| Year: 1986 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Unclassifiable | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 1 | Rating: |
5/10 | |
An educational game masquerading as an astronaut training simulator.
The objective is to reach a given destination (say, Earth) as quickly as possible, relying on minimal information. You’ll use celestial landmarks (the Sun, constellations) and your own knowledge (Earth is the third planet from the Sun, right?).
The amusing part is how space is reduced to a single flat plane. A two-dimensional radar displays the solar system’s celestial bodies surrounded by the twelve zodiac constellations, neatly arranged along the edge of a disc with a 10-million-kilometre radius. Oh, and that blinking dot on the radar? That’s your “secret base” on Halley’s Comet.
Piloting is straightforward: pick a direction (360 degrees) and set a speed. The thrill of moving freely through space is slightly dulled by the horizontal constraint, but the mechanics of inertia, trajectory corrections, and “astronomical” distances are fascinating. It’s like orienteering in an unfamiliar, otherworldly setting.
Useful tip: To land on a planet, approach it, orbit until you find a landing zone, and listen for an audio cue indicating the correct longitude. Then, click the lever on the left side of the screen.
Technical note: To get The Halley Project working on an emulator, I had to reduce “Slow Memory” from “512” to “None” in the “RAM” tab.
A quick digression. The first (and only) time I genuinely felt like I was in space while gaming was in Space Engineers (PC, 2013–2019).
I vividly remember, early on, planning to build a base on an asteroid. I kept searching for a way to reset the camera to its “default” angle, to figure out where “up” and “down” were—before realising, of course, that those concepts don’t exist in space.
The inertia of moving objects was unforgettable too. Toss a tool in one direction, and it doesn’t stop. Catching it becomes a near-impossible task as it shrinks to a pinpoint against the vast, dark backdrop. Your only option is to rush after it, moving faster but without losing sight of it. And then another problem hits: how absurdly easy it is to get disoriented. Venture just a little too far from your asteroid while chasing lost tools, and you won’t find your way back. In the absence of visual reference points, on a full 360 x 360-degree axis, I discovered it’s almost impossible to return to your starting location. Your only slim hope as a lost astronaut is to pick a random direction and pray it doesn’t take you farther away.
The resulting sense of panic is incredible. I highly recommend trying Space Engineers for this unique, visceral experience of the Void and weightlessness.
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