Galactic Empire is a turn-based multiplayer strategy game where up to 10 players compete for control of star systems by launching fleets, conquering worlds, and managing production. It belongs to a genre of early microcomputer space conquest games that thrived in the late 1970s and 1980s.
The original Commodore 64 version was created by Paul Kellam and commercially published in 1985 by Green Valley Publishing, Inc. (a division of ShareData, Inc., Minneapolis, MN) as part of the "Galactic Empire Builder" game pack, bundled with another title called "Star Warrior." The publisher was One-Step Software.
Written in BASIC, the game was designed as a social experience — meant to be played with friends gathered around a single computer, taking turns in secret. There was no AI opponent; the game was purely player-vs-player, making it more of a party/strategy game than a solo experience.
Galactic Empires / Galaxy by Tom Cleaver — the likely ancestor. Originally published by Powersoft (1979), then by Avalon Hill as "Galaxy" (1981). Featured up to 20 players conquering planets with fleets. Cleaver cited Diplomacy, Risk, and Star Trek as inspirations. This game spawned a wave of similar multiplayer planet-conquest games on early microcomputers.
Galactic Empire V1 by Paul Kellam — commercially released for the Commodore 64 by Green Valley Publishing / ShareData. 1–10 players, keyboard controlled, turn-based strategy. Distributed on 5.25" floppy disk. Also later circulated widely as public domain software on diskettes.
Galactic Empire V2 — a second version appeared on the C64, with credits to Paul Kellam (creator), Bob Dodson and Dave Campbell (coders), and Bob Dodson (graphics). A Commodore 128 conversion (80-column mode) was also created.
QuickBASIC Port by Charles Goldsmith — ported from C64 BASIC to Microsoft QuickBASIC for IBM PC compatibles. The game was adapted to use PC graphics modes (SCREEN 7), LOCATE-based display, and PLAY statements for the Star Wars theme music. Core game mechanics were preserved faithfully, with some quality-of-life additions like save/load functionality and mid-game player removal.
PSP Port — a user named Christopher (DarkWolfNine) created a PlayStation Portable version (v0.97), first with single-player support, later adding multiplayer capability.
Web Version — modernized as a web-based game with Google authentication, simultaneous multiplayer turns, real-time updates via WebSocket, and a modern space-themed UI. Built with Python (FastAPI), SQLite, and HTML5 Canvas. The combat formulas and game mechanics remain faithful to the original.
While Galactic Empire was originally a commercial release, it found its true audience through public domain distribution on Commodore 64 diskettes. Without any author attribution in the source code, the game spread anonymously through BBS systems and disk swapping communities. Many players — including the family that would later port it to PC — discovered it this way, never knowing who created it.
The game's strength was always its multiplayer design. Forum discussions from the early 2000s consistently describe it as a social experience — "beer and friends" gaming, with turns lasting up to 30 minutes at maximum difficulty and wars stretching over hours. It was Diplomacy in space, on a Commodore 64.
Galactic Empire belongs to a family of turn-based space conquest games from the early microcomputer era:
This web version is a labor of love — a game that has been played by family and friends for over 35 years, brought to the modern web.