History

~25 Years of Chase Ace

Chase Ace is a series of retro top-down space shooter games made by some guys from Denmark. This page is an attempt of gathering the pieces, and documenting the history of the games.

1998: Chase Ace

Chase Ace – the first game in the series – was two-player split-screen only and included a level editor.

It was released as shareware under the label SureSoft, in 1998. The SureSoft label was soon after dropped, the company name was changed to Space Time Foam.

The game was included on a few shareware and game magazine cover CDs.

1999: Chase Ace 2

Chase Ace 2 was self-published by Space Time Foam. It was released on CD-ROM in 1999, and only sold via chaseace.com.

The Chase Ace 2 CD-ROM

The game was a direct evolution of Chase Ace, now featuring a single player mode and mission packs as well.

Later a patch, some additional fighters, levels and a mission pack was released, free of charge, via www.chaseace.com.

2000: Reviews on IGN & GameSpy

IGN.com reviews Chase Ace 2. Read the full review.

Chase Ace 2 is a fantastic little game that packs more punch than most of the big-budget action games out there.

GameSpy reviews Chase Ace 2. Read the full review.

2001: IGF Award

In 2001 Chase Ace 2 won the Best Audio Award at the Independent Games Festival at Game Developers Conference in San Fransisco.

2003 – 2007: First Hibernation

2007: Chase Ace 2 Deluxe

Chase Ace 2 is re-released as a purely digital release including a new course and an animated intro not originally included on the CD-ROM release.

2007 – 200?: Chase Ace – Off-World Leagues Demo

Space Time Foam works on realising the dream of an updated 3d version of Chase Ace. It reaches an early prototype/demo stage, and is eventually dropped, as it proves impossible to secure funding for the project.

Chase Ace – Off-World Leagues Preproduction Trailer

The trailer above was only publicly shared product of the project…

200? – 2019: The Great Hibernation

2019: Archeology

Tobias found an old Pentium III machine. It booted, and Chase Ace Deluxe was playable again.

Chase Ace Deluxe running on an old PC in Tobias’ basement workshop

One of the major issues with playing Chase Ace on post-Windows NT machines, is that the timing is completely off. Everything moves too fast, some things move too slow, and that’s not pretty.