The periods during which I designed and programmed these two games was one of the best periods of my life. Learning how to program, thinking up the physical characteristics of 14 alien species, hints at their strange and amazing cultures, figuring out their bodies, and thinking of a set of advanced skills needed to complete various adventures -- pure delight!
That and the freedom of setting my own schedules with lots of time for reading, writing, and speculating about the future.
I have to say that I've usually been more interested in creating games than playing them. I did learn to play the war game, Gettysburg as a teenager and was enthralled. I then tried to make my own based just on some painting of the various battles in a coffe-table book on the Civil War. But then it was about 5 years before I got my second game, Africa Korps -- I always took the Rommel side. But then there followed a decade of no games other than chess.
So why did I decide to program a computer game? I haven't got any idea at all. But whatever the reason I was passionate about it.
Just in case you are one of the very few that didn't play either of these games in the 80's, (By my count only about 99.9999999% of the American public), they were a combination of role playing games and tactic science fiction battle games. Galactic Gladiators was a straight tactical battle game in which you picked a group of aliens and took them into battle with other computer generated and controlled teams. If you survived, you gained experience which increased your chances in the next battle. You could also draw your own battlefields and make up little stores aobut the fights. One of the first letters I got talked aobut how he was trying to recreate a scene from Star Wars where the storm troopers attack. Galactic Adventures added some more extended roel playing, an extended recruitment phase, and advanced skills like noetic logic and others needed to get past certain barriers.
To me, the most amazing thing about doing these games (and I'm about to date myself) is that I did virtually everything myself. I designed the games, programmed them, drew the graphics (quite primitive), wrote the rule book I did get help from friends and people at SSI in testing and making suggestions. Compare that with today where new games are developed with a million dollar budget and use teams of 30 or more people, programmers, artists, tests, story consultants, etc, etc. And you know what -- the games of today are better (Gee, why is that a surprise?)
I stopped making games for two reasons. I was going broke. And I was beginning to dream in 6502 assembler. Enough! Time for something new.