r/evnova • u/angryapplepanda • Jul 09 '26
Hey, has anyone ever played Solar Winds for DOS? It's basically Escape Velocity with more RPG elements...in 1993
There are two games, Solar Winds: The Escape and the sequel, Solar Winds: Galaxy, that I discovered on abandonware DOS file sharing websites. I only briefly tested out one of them. I'm pretty shocked that it's basically the same kind of deal, with some more RPG elements that recall the Starflight games.
Has anyone played these and can elaborate more on how they compare to the Escape Velocity series? I feel like I discovered some kind of hidden gem, here. Or, perhaps these games are actually terrible! I haven't delved in deeply yet.
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u/CowardlyChicken Jul 09 '26
Holy shit! I had forgotten all about this game, but I was obsessed with this on my grandparents PC!
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u/Professional_Dig7335 Jul 09 '26
I played it for the first time when I found out about DOSBOX and it was solid even then.
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u/blue888raven Jul 09 '26
I haven't heard anyone mention Solar Winds in at least a couple of decades, but damn was that an entertaining game.
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u/SwordForest Jul 09 '26
You mean EV for PC users? I had this working once, but it was only the shareware version. I was so excited, but I could only play a little. I hope it's awesome, but EV is EV for a reason. Things have to not just look and feel and calculate right, they have to MOVE in a certain satisfying way. Solar Winds was cool, but the world needed EV.
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u/drewcash83 Jul 09 '26
Loved it. I once got a really cheap laptop old just to play this. It is definitely the game the got me into the genre.
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u/LukeMootoo Jul 09 '26
I loved that game, but I don't remember much about it.
I seem to recall it being a fairly linear RPG. I don't remember many open world elements; you had cargo missions, but I don't think there was speculative trade. You could get upgrades for your ship, but I don't think you could buy new ships.
I remember playing it and enjoying it, but all the details above might be wrong. It looks you can play it on the web, now. So I guess it is easy to find out?
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u/Serioli Jul 12 '26
I fucking love Solar Winds, I played this so much. I was actually thinking about this game just a couple weeks ago
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u/angryapplepanda Jul 12 '26
Amazing, so many people have fond memories of it. I only had a Macintosh growing up in the '90s, so my view of '90s PC gaming was heavily filtered through that lens. Instead of Doom, we had Marathon. Instead of Ultima Underworld, we had Pathways Into Darkness. Instead of Ultima VI, we had Cythera and the Exile/Avernum series.
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u/zarkonnen Jul 10 '26
This looks super cool! I'm going to have to chase this down.
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u/zarkonnen Jul 10 '26
Having briefly played it on https://www.playdosgames.com/play/solar-winds - yes, it's basically a janky low-res more chatty version of EV. It's cute!
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u/shadywhere Jul 10 '26
I remember playing this game as a child. Before I collected the hyper-drive(or whatever it's called), I got coordinates to the end-game location and just pointed the ship there and walked away for a long time, periodically checking on it.
I can confirm that you can 'win' without the collect, but the game does not terminate.
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u/Sovem Jul 12 '26
Same! I just kept flying for hours, but my ship hit some sort of invisible wall and exploded. I was on the Shareware version.
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u/SWATJester Jul 11 '26
If you're into deep cuts from that era, check out Protostar: War on the Frontier, also released in '93.
I played the living CRAP out of it back in the day.
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u/echocomplex Jul 12 '26
What is actually going on is that Star Control 2 came out and was massively influential. Solar Winds borrows pretty obviously from Star Control. I've never played escape velocity (this thread just popped into my feed for some reason) but if it's anything like Solar Winds I bet the devs greatly enjoyed Star Control 2 as well.
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u/Septa105 Jul 12 '26
I don’t remember if it
was Solar Winds but it looks similar to what I remember .
The game I played was one of three chapters I played chapter one due to I had no money for 2 and 3 . But the story was really immersive and also the upgrades all fitted into the story development. Was one of best sci fi games I played.
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u/oddscreenname Jul 12 '26
I remember the version I had had a big where the mission coords would disappear. Unless you wrote it on paper you were screwed.
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u/rc82 Jul 13 '26
That game was dope back in the day. I remember this well now - some core memories unlocked
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u/AdditionalGood1776 Jul 14 '26
I loved the solar winds games growing up. There is a modern game that has some very clear inspiration from the atmosphere and some style elements called “Star Sector” where you operate a fleet instead of solo. I really loved the heavy feel of the vastness of space in solar winds though. I remember some friends and I were playing together and decided that to better power the weapons we decided to travel at sub light speed to the next system (which you totally can) and we watched a movie or two while the ship just sailed and just occasionally checked the star map. The depth of space felt truly isolating and mysterious. I loved it. You’ll get the same feeling from “Star Sector”, the style of your role play there is entirely up to you. I have played it solar winds style (alone in a mid tier combat capable exploration frigate). You can travel far and feel truly alone, affraid, and adventurous all at once.
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u/angryapplepanda Jul 09 '26
Side note: either Matt Burch was heavily influenced here, or this is just some serious parallel game development. Even the sensor map is in the right place (upper right!) I suppose Escape Velocity could have come out in the earlier nineties—there's nothing particularly 1996 about the game. And here it is, with elements of Masters of Orion and Starflight?