“What is Strategic Simulations merchandise?” In case you young’uns aren’t old enough or just need a refresher let me give you a quick refresher. In 1979, video game publisher and developer Strategic Simulations Inc (SSI) was founded by Joel Billings. Billings wanted to translate his love of wargames to home computers. Early SSI games premiered on the Apple II and the TRS-80.
After a series of games that were written by third party authors starting in 1982, SSI began to explore the RPG genre. In 1984, they released titles like Wizard’s Crown, Questron, and Phantasie. Three years later, SSI bought the complete acquisition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons license. This move greatly influenced early western RPG’s. These games became known as the Gold Box games due to the use of the Gold Box engine. They produced a very popular line of games for the company.
SSI also had success with its wargame franchises Steel Panthers and the General series. After being acquired by Mindscape in 1994, SSI was later absorbed into the Ubisoft brand. In typical fashion, the mad, tyrannical giant…er, I mean Ubisoft…then proceeded to retire the Strategic Simulations name.
Here are some Strategic Simulations merchandise and SSI Gold Box games auctions floating around:
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance CIB NES
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance C64 – Sealed in original box. Sticker says Demo Copy
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Dragons of the Flame C64 – sealed
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Champions of Krynn PC – CIB. Damn fine sequel to Pool of Radiance and Curse of Azure Bonds. Kicks off the Dragonlance series. Keep in mind the box shows some wear and original owner wrote on the paperwork
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: The Dark Queen of Krynn PC – Owner says set is CIB and condition is like new
- The Dark Queen of Krynn Adventurer’s Journal
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Death Knights of Krynn Amiga CIB – Seller is in Britain. Comes in original box with the following: 1991 catalog, Promotional flyer, Data card, Rule Book, Adventure’s journal, 2 x 3½” game disks
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Pool of Radiance C64 – Pickings are a bit slim for the C64 copy. Usually sells around the $10 range. PC copy is much cheaper.
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Sun Wake of the Ravager PC
- Curse of the Azure Bonds SSI Clue Book – Still sealed in its original wrap. Plastic looks a bit beat up, but you can tell the book underneath appears great!
- Computer Ambush Apple II – There’s one copy with intial bid just over $40. Not a super common game. Some people see this gem as the true precursor to the original Xcom games.
- First Over Germany C64 – Be smart here. Don’t spend over $30. It’s rare, but not that rare.
- Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday SSI Clue Book
- Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed PC – There’s a pretty sweet CIB listing for $25
- Steel Panthers PC – Not surprisingly, this CD-Rom based game is super affordable and plentiful on Ebay. Should be able to score a copy somewhere between $10 to $20 if patient enough.
- In case you aren’t into mid 90’s armchair turn based strategy games, the developers released SP for free some time ago here. You’re welcome! 🙂
- Pacific General PC – Probably my all time favorite of the General series. Like SP, relatively affordable (if you’re patient and not too picky)
- Fantasy General PC
- Panzer Strike! Apple II – A bit more rare and pricey than aforementioned games.
- Clash of Steel PC – Plentiful and affordable. Don’t really see prices shooting up anytime soon. Definite bargains to be had here.
