Games

Empire

Real-time interstellar war, a recreation of the 1973 PLATO classic.

Download for Windowsv1.1.0 · 60 MB · free

About

Empire was one of the first multiplayer space games, written by John Daleske for the CDC PLATO system in 1973. This single-player recreation pits the Federation, Klingons, Romulans and Orions against each other in real time, rendered in PLATO's plasma orange.

Pick your empire, up to three rivals, allied bots and a difficulty from Cadet to Admiral. Bomb enemy worlds, beam up armies from your own and beam them down to capture. Win by wiping out every rival, or by holding a share of all worlds long enough.

  • Five difficulty levels you can change mid-game
  • Each race flies a different hull, from strong and slow to fast and fragile
  • Optional fleet growth: hold more worlds, field more ships
  • PLATO-style typed commands alongside mouse and keyboard controls

Controls

Left-clickSet course
SpaceFire torpedo
PPhasers
0–9Warp speed
SShields
OOrbit
BBomb
U / DBeam armies up or down
CCloak
HFull help

Version history

  1. v1.1.0Oct 18, 2026
  2. v1.0.0Oct 17, 2026Add release workflow that publishes a Windows zip

All releases and notes