IronSeed was a science-fiction DOS game from 1994, which was both developed and published by Channel 7.

The gameplay was real-time, featuring trading, research, manufacturing, diplomacy, “realistic” space combat, on-edge crew members, and strategy.  The procedural nature of the game engine generated a rogue-like universe for each new playthrough featuring ten core empires, including a multitude of others which could evolve during the game.

My interest in the game began in the ’90s when I came across the demo on an NZ BSS called Wolf 359.  Its bleak outlook, and excellent music, stayed with me in subsequent years.

In 2013 I became aware that IronSeed had been released as OSS, with the source code, as part of a promotion for Channel 7’s upcoming IronSeed 2.  Unfortunately, the new game would not come to fruition, except for a modern remake https://store.steampowered.com/app/1412980/Ironseed_25th_Anniversary_Edition/

As an exercise in improving my programming skills in Python, I initiated a GitHub project called Ironseed-py, a python remake of the ironseed engine.  This engine is not 1:1 with the original IronSeed implementation, and I have aimed to keep it flexible for other game designers to make mods and new assets for this version of ironSeed.

The project repository with the in-development Python 3 version of the game engine can is here: https://github.com/nukebloodaxe/Ironseed-py

If you are interested in a massively bug-fixed version of the original IronSeed, in Pascal, it is here: https://github.com/nukebloodaxe/ironseed_fpc

I am very grateful to Matija Nalis for his work on the original, which has brought it to what I consider a very playable state.