Distributor(s) Apple Core Release date(s) 1978 Genre Strategy video game Platform Apple II | Designer(s) Weyman Fong Initial release date 1978 Mode Single-player video game | |
Dynasty is a text-based resource-management game for the Apple II family of computers, written in BASIC in December 1978 by Weyman Fong and distributed by San Francisco-based Apple Core. The game is an expanded version of the earlier Hamurabi.
The player assumes the role of the governor of Hunan Province in China during the Yuan Dynasty (1260-1368). At the player's direction, crops must be planted and harvested, grain must be stored and portioned out for sowing fields and feeding the citizenry, and disasters large and small must be endured. These disasters range from losing grain to rats or graft, to earthquakes that destroy land, to plagues that can decimate the population. Crop yields fluctuate as the result of rains and droughts, as do grain prices at the market and the cost of purchasing land; balancing these factors is the principal challenge of the game. If the player achieves a combined total number of acres of land and bushels of grain that meets or exceeds one million, the game is won and the player declared emperor.
Similar titles for the Apple II include Santa Paravia en Fiumaccio (1978) by SoftSide, King (1978) by James A. Storer, and City of Sumer (1980) by Crystalware.