Mac nostalgia: Spacestation Pheta
Frame of Preference showed up in my Mastodon feed recently—it’s a beautiful, elegant, and fun exploration of early Macintosh preference user interfaces. It’s powered by Infinite Mac, a web-based emulator, which recently added the ability to embed one directly into any website.
This inspired me to share some of my favorite classic Macintosh experiences. I’ve been a Mac user since 1988, and as a digital packrat, I’ve maintained an archive of all my old disks. The first thing that sprang to mind was Spacestation Pheta. You can play it on a Macintosh Plus emulator below in your desktop browser. (To enable keyboard shortcuts, I’ve swapped the Control and Command keys; also note that the game defaults to IJKL directional keys rather than the now-standard WASD, which you can change in Editor > Game Options….)
Screen size
About the game
Spacestation Pheta is a puzzle platformer—one of my favorite game genres. It’s a good mix of action and strategy, and I like that it doesn’t throw enemies at you; the only peril you face comes from the electrified floors and falling too far. The graphics are simple; they remind me a bit of Lode Runner (another of my early favorites on an Apple IIe).
One of the most fun aspects of the game is the ability to create your own levels. I made my own set and exchanged them with friends. It’s very satisfying to construct a long multistep puzzle (#5), or a level that showcases all the little tricks of the game (#2, #12), or requires precise timing (#10), or has a fun visual design (#11), or is partially automated (#6) or completely automated with just one key press to solve (#13). (Check out Pheta > Show Solution… if you get stuck.)
I hope you enjoy playing! If you want to try some custom levels, choose Editor > Change Game File…, then double-click Screens in the Open dialog and choose one.