Shenandoah: Daughter of the Stars, a shoot-'em-up made by four Swedish teenagers, was just about finished and ready for a release on the Amiga in 1993. Then the project collapsed, and its developers split up. Now, nearly 23 years later, the game has been reborn as 1993 Space Machine, and it launched today on Steam for Mac and Windows PC.
"This is a very exciting day in my life. Finally, the game that was developed in my childhood room back in 1993 is ready, even though it took 23 years to finish it," said Krister Karlsson, the game's original designer, in a press release today.
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Karlsson now runs Modesty, a Stockholm-based design firm that also develops games. In the fall of 2013, he found two boxes in his basement labeled "Amiga stuff." Karlsson opened them to find a 20-year-old treasure trove: three Amiga computers and some floppy disks with the demo of Shenandoah.
Modesty decided to rebrand Shenandoah as 1993 Space Machine, and although the final product runs on a new engine, the developers wanted to remain as faithful as possible to the original team's vision. So 1993 Space Machine contains the same level design, story and art assets as Shenandoah did, and it still hews to the limitations of the Amiga hardware: no more than 32 colors per screen, and a cap on the amount of objects on screen at once.
1993 Space Machine regularly costs $12.99, but is available for $11.69 — a 10 percent discount — during its launch week; the deal ends April 4. An Xbox One version is also in development. For more on 1993 Space Machine, check out our feature on the story behind the game's revival.
