Star Wars: Droidworks

If I recall, Star Wars: Droidworks was the first game my parents purchased for me on our brand new Gateway computer ("4GB HDD! WOW! How can you fill SO MUCH SPACE?!") in '98. Since before that point, I'd only played early side-scroller computer games (with the exception of a brief taste of Wolfenstein 3D), Droidworks really captured my fascination. Besides, at that point, we only had some very weak television (just enough to get PBS) and Star Wars was the only science fiction I knew of.



The game consists of one creating "droids" by combining various parts and then painting them as you desired. There were a number of missions that one needed to complete, some requiring very specific droid specs, such as being magnetic. And here Maxis thought that they did it first.

Quaint as the game may now appear to be, I loved it, and I believe that I learned quite a bit from it as well. Note, this is back when I was just beginning to really read (and before I found any fascination in books), and still had but very rudimentary mathematics skills (so in order to finish the puzzles concerning angles and such things, I had to devise a system to work out the correct answer without actually understanding how it all worked--or use trial and error). The game also helped initiate my love for sci-fi and robots.

System Requirements:

• Windows 95 or 98


• Pentium 133MHz


• 16MB RAM; 32MB recommended


• Minimum 34MB hard disk space


• 4X IDE or SCSI CD-ROM


• 100% Direct X compatible PCI graphics card


• 100% DirectX compatible 16 bit sound device

If you'd like to give the game a whirl, try out the demo or buy it.