Spacewar

Spacewar is a two player networked game inspired by the original Spacewar! on PLATO. Two players control a spaceship each in a two dimensional representation of space. The ships can thrust, rotate, and fire and must try to destroy each other. The ships are represented by custom ASCII graphics. Unlike the original Spacewar! Here ships have only limited fuel and hyperspace jumps. Connected users are listed on screen (big board) and can be challenged to a duel.

The game was originally written for PLATO III, but later ported to PLATO IV. When PLATO went on the ARPANET in 1974 the game became incompatible. It was replaced by Orbit War.