Under the Influence: SunDog: Frozen Legacy

Many years ago, I was one of the relatively few whose personal computer was not an IBM-clone or an Apple, nor even an Amiga, but an Atari ST; a lot of people don't even realize that Atari did indeed build full-fledged computers in those days, and quite good ones. Of course, being a splinter market, they did not always get all the software one might want.

But they did have, for a short time, the company called FTL Games, and that meant two milestone games: Dungeon Master, one of the first 3-D dungeon-crawl games (and precursor of other first-person games), and SunDog: Frozen Legacy.

SunDog was unique, and to this day I'm not sure there is an entirely comparable game; the closest I can think of is Escape Velocity: Override and its relatives. In SunDog, you take the role of a character named Zed, who has inherited two things from his recently deceased uncle: a starship named the SunDog, and a contract to support a newly founded colony's development and expansion. If you can carry out this contract, you will become a free man (having been previously a slave).

To do this, you have to first locate the colony itself, determine what supplies they currently need, and then procure them. But it's not that simple. You have a starship that's not in top shape when you begin, and only a small amount of money. You need to make enough money to purchase both the supplies the colony needs, and the material to support your ship – including keeping it fuelled.

To accomplish all this, you have your ship – which is also provided with a "cargo pod" that amounts to a large, multi-terrain vehicle, so that you can explore areas of a planet beyond those immediately surrounding a spaceport – a small fund of starting money, and a star map.

SunDog is stunningly complex and diverse for a game released in 1984. This is not just a trading game or indeed "just" any particular sort of game. As Zed, you need to keep your ship in repair – with fairly complex system designs requiring you to either have the right components to fix it, or to rig temporary, not nearly as efficient, but serviceable fixes by shunting around damaged component areas. You have to evade or destroy pirates trying to kill you and take your cargo. You need to keep yourself fed and rested. You have to figure out where you can buy some goods cheap and sell them high.

You need to locate colonists (called "cryogens", and the source of the "Frozen Legacy" subtitle – these volunteer colonists are in coldsleep until they arrive at their colony) that your uncle had arranged to be stored at various cities across the galaxy until he could transport them. You need to upgrade your ship so you can land at cities that even your cargo pod cannot reach. And eventually you need to find your way to a terribly dangerous system just to get your final load of colonists.

Zed can converse with people both through communication screens and in person, walking around towns. He can get mugged, or fight off muggers; he can evade pirates, jump to lightspeed to flee, or fight them and possibly make a profit from their cargo.

Despite the early date of this game's release, in short, there was an INCREDIBLE wealth of detail and diversity of activity in SunDog. It was by far the most addictive game (not involving other human players, anyway) I had played to that point, and retained that title for twelve years, until Chrono Trigger was released in 1996.

To this day, I remember SunDog with great fondness and really wish I could play it again someday. There is some hope for this, as the SunDog Resurrection Project (http://sundogresurrectionproject.com/) has been moving in fits and starts to revive the game. Maybe they'll succeed; I hope so, and that I'll be able to play it in some fashion.

SunDog was also directly influential and inspiring in another fashion. In the Space Opera RPG game I created a character based on Zed. This character became a supporting character in a space opera I was writing at the time, then titled simply Psionic! The character went through many changes – named Sundog, then Starhawk, then eventually Eonwyl, and changing sex from female to male to female to male multiple times before finally ending up as female, and one of the primary characters rather than a secondary. If that trilogy – currently titled Demons of the Past – is ever released, there will be a small but significant piece that is a direct and very conscious salute to SunDog: Frozen Legacy, as one of the best games ever written for any platform, ever.

If you ever get a chance to play it… I hope you can set your mind back to 1984 and realize just what an amazing, eye-opening experience it was when you first found yourself in an operating starship with systems you could examine, repair, or even kitbash to functionality, and then fly out into the galaxy to explore, trade, fight, and found a colony… for the sake of your own freedom.