from Hacker News

Planetfall

by milliams on 5/22/25, 9:17 AM with 106 comments

• by mmooss on 5/22/25, 1:58 PM

  The author Daniel Huffman's story is quite compelling and inspiring:

  https://somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.com/about/

  The long version is even better:

  https://somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/on-salva...

• by SamPatt on 5/22/25, 3:55 PM

  This game was deeply important to me: it's the first time I remember explicitly recognizing different ideological and religious beliefs abstracted away from their particular human instantiations.

  I absolutely loved the different factions and what they believed in. It always made me wonder what types of beliefs aliens would have, if they exist.

• by bcwu on 5/23/25, 1:19 AM

  Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri - what a game.

  Through SMAC, I found ideas about how future societies might organize themselves to ensure human survival and progress. I found ideas about speculative technologies and how they could reshape civilization. I found that playing the game made me feel less alone, because it revealed loneliness as a universal human condition—timeless and unyielding. I found hope in a vision of humanity finding its place among the stars. I found myself grappling with ideas far larger than myself. I found my empathy measured by in-game choices. I found that history, like the game, carries no moral compass—it only moves forward.

• by mdp2021 on 5/22/25, 8:14 PM

  To those wondering why "planetfall" for Sid Meyer's Alpha Centauri: it was a recurrent term in the game, the "start of history".

  And the starting prompt was:

  > $NAME3, a new era of struggle and opportunity awaits you. The UN Starship Unity has arrived in the Alpha Centauri system after a forty year voyage. All contact with Earth has been lost. After Captain Garland's assassination by an unknown assailant, the crew mutinied and split into factions. In the ensuing conflict, some seized control of the Unity's colony pods. You now shape the destiny of your $<M1:$FACTIONADJ0> faction, which has just made PLANETFALL!

• by VladVladikoff on 5/22/25, 12:46 PM

  >So, I went over the map and wrote down the elevation value of every tile. All 8,192 of them.

  Surely there was a more automated solution than to do something 8k times manually?

• by rakejake on 5/23/25, 6:49 AM

  Reading the description of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, I realize the animation series "Scavengers Reign" has a very similar setting (human colonists crash land on a planet that seems to be sentient).

  I'll use this opportunity to encourage people to watch this show. If you are a fan of sci-fi (think Greg Egan, Vernor Vinge), you will love this. If you are not, I think you should still give it a try. It is that good.

• by bn-l on 5/22/25, 12:08 PM

  The sound design of this game was so good. Such a superb game.

• by Tepix on 5/22/25, 12:28 PM

  The work is great and i like the map and the writeup. Excellent work!

  One shortcoming is that its land texture doesn't show any contrasty edges, everything smoothly flows into other regions. We see the mountains but the textures pretty much ignore them and the edges that we see in our planet's texture are missing.

• by johngossman on 5/22/25, 10:08 AM

  I had to give the disk for that game away in order to stop playing it. It was seriously interfering with work and sleep.

• by smcameron on 5/22/25, 2:24 PM

  Along similar lines is "Here Dragons Abound", a blog about procedural generation of fantasy maps, though it hasn't been updated in awhile. https://heredragonsabound.blogspot.com/

• by liamwire on 5/22/25, 10:56 AM

  Seconding the sentiment, this was a brilliant read that gave me a newfound appreciation for the art of cartography, but also for giving oneself over to a pursuit fully. Truly excellent.

• by peteforde on 5/22/25, 5:05 PM

  I never played Alpha Centauri - I was more of a Master of Magic / Syndicate guy - but your writing about this project makes me wish I hadn't ignored it back in the day.

  Pulling back, I want to say that as I get older and hopefully wiser, the number one quality in a person that draws me to them is their passion for deep cut niche interests, pursued without care of who is watching. Often in spite of who is watching.

  I don't have any particular interest in cartography or typography, but watching people who are truly, deeply nerdy about a topic is one of the most pure joys. In some ways, it's actually better that I'm not into these things because it allows me to appreciate just how much you are.

  When I'm choosing who to spend time around, I don't care if you're passionate about the same things as me. I strongly care that you're passionate about something.

  ^ this is me telling you I despise nihilists without telling you I despise nihilists. Except, well... sorry.

• by david_draco on 5/22/25, 7:38 PM

  > there’s also an official, built-in map of the planet, carefully crafted

  Is there a mathematical framework for how to optimize a map for gameplay to be most enjoyable?

• by pkkim on 5/23/25, 2:56 AM

  If you like Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, you owe it to yourself to read this deep dive into the philosophy behind it. https://paeantosmac.wordpress.com/

• by em-bee on 5/22/25, 12:15 PM

  they asked if I mapped real or fictional places

  yes he does

• by kaonwarb on 5/22/25, 10:06 AM

  Remarkable work of love. Thank you for sharing.

• by jiveturkey on 5/22/25, 9:00 PM

  i had a nerdgasm

• by anton-c on 5/22/25, 1:10 PM

  I mean I'm a giant smac fan but didn't realize the title referred to that. You gotta put that more up front, that game gets clicks. Anyways, time to read your article. Cheers!

• by DidYaWipe on 5/22/25, 6:09 PM

  What does this have to do with Planetfall? I expected to land on an online version of the game, but nope.

• by bernds74 on 5/22/25, 10:02 AM

  Well, clicked on it thinking it might be about an old favourite Infocom game, but apparently it appears to be about an old favourite Firaxis game...

  Are you the author of the web site? Please make sure the PgDn key works for scrolling through the page. At the moment it switches images which are just barely on the screen.

• by abraxas on 5/22/25, 12:48 PM

  Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC) was a very interesting title. It came about because Sid Meier lost his rights to the Civilization franchise for a period of time. Yet SMAC was considered the real successor to CivII rather than Civilization Call To Power because of the recognition and the genius of Sid Meier.

  But SMAC was in its day quite divisive. Some Civ fans (self included) weren't able to get into the world with unfamiliar tech tree, obscure terrain features and the whole nomenclature of the game just being so... alien.

  Now, granted it was likely the best sci-fi turn based title ever made but at the time us fans of Sid's work were really craving for a sequel to CivII and as a result SMAC received a somewhat lukewarm welcome. Likely undeservedly so.

• by antonios on 5/22/25, 12:35 PM

  Cartography, check. Alpha Centauri game, check. Very cool.

  On my list, Alpha Centauri easily makes it on top 5 games ever made.

  Thank you for the trip to memory lane. <goes to GOG to download the game>