Terminus is a space-flight role-playing action video game by Vicarious Visions. It was released in 2000 for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Apple Macintosh. Terminus won awards in the 1999 Independent Games Festival for "Technical Excellence" and "Innovation in Audio".
Gameplay
In Story mode, the player chooses one of four careers (United Earth League military, Mars Consortium militia, Marauder Pirate Clan, mercenary) and follows Terminuss single-player storyline, set in the year 2197. In 2000, Terminus was unusual among RPGs in that the player's actions can affect the ending of the storyline. Failing a mission, for example, may lead to a different ending than would have occurred if the mission had succeeded. One unique feature of Terminus is the story would progress with or without the player. The player could begin the game in story mode, then go off and do something else and the story missions/battles would still take place, reaching an outcome depending on which side eventually wins.
In Free mode, the player chooses a career and does the same as in Story mode, except there will be no storyline missions. In Gauntlet mode, the player outfits a ship with near-infinite money at their disposal, and faces several waves of attackers, with the object of staying alive for as long as possible.
Development
Polygon explained that Vicarious Visions' first major game "following the publishing debacle during college", was the space combat role-playing video game Terminus. President Karthik Bala said "We ended up getting a personal bank loan for a million dollars. We knew if we didn't figure this out and make it work, we'd be screwed for the rest of our lives." The duo of developers had been left with a mountain of debt from development costs on Synnergist due to the publishers not giving them royalties for the game, and began work on this project on 1996.
Back in January 1998, the "Vicarious Visions' seven full-time employees and squadron of contractors" were laboring to complete the game, which at the time was to be the company's second release. At that point "The development budget for Terminus ha[d] already crossed the $250,000 mark with months' more work to be done before an expected September 1998 release." Bala said at the time "Terminus will include not only network and Internet play, which is becoming almost standard in games, but also the capability for players to communicate by voice." Polygon explained that despite winning some industry awards, "publishers were reluctant to take on the project [and] when Vatival Entertainment finally shipped the game in 2000, it hardly sold." The site added "Terminus should be the first of a series of sims that will encourage 'l33t' skillz to master." to allow continued development of the game and thus has been improved and enhanced. Although the client files are still available at the TerminusPoint website, the project has seemingly been abandoned.
Reception
At the time of its release, the game received above-average reviews on both platforms according to the review aggregation website GameRankings. Computer Games Strategy Plus said, "When everything is said and done, Terminus comes out looking-and feeling-good."