~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 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
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.
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.
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.