Back in ’95 or ’96 I won a cash prize in a short story competition for a story entitled Alien Galactic Domination™ It was based, in part, on my recent addiction to UFO: Enemy Unknown and spun a theory for just why all these compulsive computer games were coming out.

January 9th

My life has been taken over by a computer game. It�s called Alien Galactic Domination. I know it�s a crap name, sounds like the sort of thing you�d get on an old Speccy or Commodore- all flashing sprites and shoot things until you blow up- but I think that all the creative thought went into the game instead. Mark gave it to me on disk. Said he�d downloaded it from some point on the Net and that it was freeware. I have no reason not to believe him, neither of us is averse to a little piracy after all. It just seems far too good, too polished, to be something that was just run up for somebody�s pleasure.

What the hell, who cares. The game is brilliant. You play one of two races on a planet circling an unnamed sun (you�re not human, though I can�t see why not). You�re just on the verge of space age technology and the race is on to see which of you can be the first off-world. There�s a second planet in the system, see, that�s probably fertile and might even provide a new homeworld.

I haven�t got off to a good start, being involved in a ground war with the horrible furry buggers that inhabit the world�s poles. Skirmish after skirmish is coming to nothing. I think I�m going to develop neutron bombs or something to hit at their capitals.

Sometime this week the modem should arrive. I�ve been waiting for ages to get �on-line� and now I get to do it for free. Bruce (editor) got so pissed off with my disks disappearing in the post that he had the mag pay for it, the on-line time�s paid for as well, all I have to worry about is the phone bill. Cool.

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