Final Frontier

Final Frontier is a video game in the strategy genre developed by Bubble Bus Software and published by Personal Software Services originally released in 1989. It is currently playable on DOS.

When mankind began to introduce into the Earth's biosphere events it could not handle, the biosphere crashed. Genetically modified organisms caused the death of all life forms except the androids produced for the last war. They gathered resources, built robots, sent them out to fight, etc. Earth made a biosphere replacement based on radiation energy instead of solar energy. The androids have discovered that radiation storms leave a trail of nuclear material and have begun to collect it for use as an energy source. And they have begun to evolve. Collecting the metallic debris, they have analyzed and redesigned the robots, advancing in their evolution. Because of this situation, the planetary review panel has asked the design council to stop the demolition of the planet's surface and reassignment to the design pool. And the design council has accepted the recommendation on one condition. A clearly dominant android form must emerge before the next review, or the planet will be reassigned to the design pool.

Thus, the player controls a mobile android military complex, commonly called a robot city. The player's goal is to conquer all other robot cities on the continent and develop their manufacturing and design capabilities to become the supreme model. The continent is divided into zones. Each zone contains an enemy city. The player's city is mobile and can move between zones, and around the map within a zone. The player has a central storehouse of metal and energy which is used to build robots. The player sends out from the city to collect more energy and metal, fight enemy robots, and locate and destroy the enemy city in each zone.

The player's production line can only produce a limited number of robot models and it takes time, energy and metal to produce them. The player can obtain the blueprints to produce better and more devastating models by defeating mutant cities in certain zones that are marked on the world map. The combat and production capabilities of the enemy cities vary from zone to zone, and the player must find a route to each mutant city that does not take him through a zone containing a city more powerful than the player can handle, as the player needs to destroy the enemy city in order to get through a zone. There are a number of things that make life more difficult. The rough terrain of the devastated land restricts the movement of some robot models. For example, air-powered models cannot cross hills or broken terrain, and tracked models cannot cross lava flows. Radiation storms will destroy any robot caught in them, and electromagnetic storms can destroy any flying model in an area.

The game has three screens from which the player controls the action: The icon screen has icons with various functions around the edges, including icons to access the other two screens, and a radar map of the area the player is in the center. The radar map can display a variety of different information by selecting various icons.
The main map is where the action takes place. This is a fold-out map of the area, showing the player's city, his robots, enemies, and the various types of terrain and other hazards the player encounters. The action here is controlled by a cursor that the player can move around the map.
The production screen is the factory floor from which the player designs and builds the robots, and keeps track of his metal and energy resources.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.