Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative

Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative was a Star Trek themed computer software game by American studio Micromosaics, designed for the Apple II Plus, Apple IIe, and Apple IIc. The game was also available for the Commodore 64, Macintosh and IBM PC. This text adventure was first published in 1985 by Simon & Schuster. The player assumes the role of Admiral James T. Kirk. As Kirk, the player commands the actions of the Enterprise crew, as well as the Enterprise itself. The game was expansive and ambitious, but also very buggy.

Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative
Cover art by Robert Pearlman
Developer(s)Micromosaics
Publisher(s)Simon & Schuster
Designer(s)Mark Sutton-Smith
Alain Benzaken
Artist(s)Josie Koehne
Writer(s)Diane Duane
Platform(s)Apple II, Commodore 64, Macintosh, IBM PC
Release1985
Genre(s)Text adventure
Mode(s)Single-player

The plot is based on the idea that Starfleet is replacing the Kobayashi Maru scenario with a new test based on a mission from the Enterprise logs. The player is supposedly testing this "Kobayashi Alternative Command Performance Evaluation" for a Starfleet admiral.

Reception

Computer Gaming World criticized Kobayashi for many bugs and poor documentation, while approving of the game's design and its portrayal of the crew.[1] The magazine reported that version 1.1 for the Apple with improved documentation still had bugs, including a serious one when visiting Orna, and concluded "I cannot recommend it".[2]

gollark: I doubt it can run a TCP/IP stack.
gollark: On platforms which have it.
gollark: I'm sure Python interpreters use this internally anyway.
gollark: There's not even a way to make it emulate a USB HID device or something, sad.
gollark: That's so CISCy.

References
  1. Scorpia (March 1986), "Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative", Computer Gaming World, pp. 36–37, 42, 45
  2. Scorpia (August 1986). "Kobayashi Revisited". Computer Gaming World. p. 30.
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