Space Station 3000

[1] Scheduled for release in 1999 by Blittersoft, SPACE STATION 3000 was cancelled in late 2000 after 2.5 years of development for Amiga/PC by developer Digital Images.

Stuart Walker, head-honcho at Digital Images, had this to say in an interview in late 2000 when asked about why the game was cancelled:

'To cut a long story short, Space Station 3000 was an experiment that unfortunately didn't work out as well in practise as it did on paper. Space Station 3000 sounded like an extremely nice idea, but despite re-writing large amount of the code and re-starting all over again a few times we decided that the game had made very little progress over the last two and a half years of development. Some people may note that the status bar on the game read 90% at one time, but again that version of the game wasn't good enough.

We felt that our time would be better spent on developing another idea and as I said before, Space Station 3000 was an experiment and unfortunately it didn't work. It happens when you develop new ideas and after playing them, it doesn't work out to be as good as you hope. We didn't want to release a bad game when we could be developing something much better that people will have fun with.' [Source: Amiga Flame interview, Nov 2000].

[2] A detailed description of SPACE STATION 3000 is provided by the developers HERE. [Source: Digital Images(old website), courtesy of the Internet Archive]

[3] The GENETIC SPECIES engine was licensed by developer Marble Eyes in May 1999 to Digital Images for the 3D part of SPACE STATION 3000. [Source: Marble Eyes(old website), courtesy of the Internet Archive]

[4] Jochen Heizmann's music from the game is available in MP3 format HERE. [Source: Amiga Museum]

[5] Reportedly, a demo of SPACE STATION 3000 was released briefly in April 1999 on the developer's website, but withdrawn soon after. The demo appeared lost without a trace following the demise of Digital Images.

Fortunately, the SPACE STATION 3000(demo) has since resurfaced and is available for download from the following sources:

- SPACE STATION 3000(HD demo) [Source: EAB FTP site]
- SPACE STATION 3000(HD demo) [Source: EAB FTP mirror site]
- SPACE STATION 3000(HD demo) (dir: /game/demo/SpaceStation3000_Demo.lha) [Source: Aminet]

Requirements (demo): 68020 CPU or better, 1MB chipram, 8MB fastram, AGA chipset or graphics card, 21MB HD space.

[6] Shortly before the demo release, an Amiga Format preview appeared stating that the game was in the final stages of beta testing in readiness for publication but, alas, a retail release of SPACE STATION 3000 never materialised.