Gary Martin
From TradeWars Museum
Community Member
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Gary Martin is the original creator of TradeWars 2001 and TradeWars 2002. In 1986, Martin acquired a Pascal port of Sherrick's early BASIC TradeWars. Because that version was unstable, Martin wrote his own port using both that and the original Sherrick code. His purpose in creating a new version was to support the Genesis BBS that he was running at the time. The Genesis version was never released, but a port to WWIV, which included some changes and additions, was released as TradeWars 2001 in late 1986 to early 1987.
Between 1987 and 1991, Martin developed TradeWars 2002 v1. TW2002 v1 was a complete rewrite, and numerous new features were added, as well as the trademark ANSI screens which included the Cinema animations by Drew Markham. This version distanced Martin's TradeWars from those that came before, and established it as the standard of all TradeWars-inspired games. A few months later, he released the final version of v1, and started work on TW2002 v2. During development of v2, he met MaryAnn, his future wife. She provided feedback on the design, and handled the business side of Gary's game company, Martech Software.
TradeWars 2002 v2 was released in 1993, adding a number of new features like the Interdictor Cruiser, a new Citadel level, and the various planet types. Development of a MajorBBS port of v2 began in 1992, by High Velocity Software, and was released in 1994. The MBBS version provided all of the TW2002 v2 functionality, but added true realtime, multiplayer interaction.
Updates of TW2002 v2 were released through 1996 when John Pritchett, who had joined Martin in 1995 to assist in v2 debugging, began work on TW2002 v3. TW2002 v3, released in 1997, did not add significant new functionality to v2, but instead implemented a multiplayer engine that allowed v2 to support the same interactive gameplay that had become popular in the HVS version.
Following v3, Martin and Pritchett worked on two new multiplayer online games, a fantasy RPG and a space opera. However, both projects were put on hold while Pritchett returned to TradeWars to create the Gold expansion in an effort to generate funding to support the new projects. Gold was released in 1998, but it failed to generate enough revenue to allow the two to continue their projects. In 2000, Martin sold TradeWars to Pritchett and shifted his focus to other endeavors.
