When I talk to younger friends about gaming, one of the things they tend to struggle with is the concept that players could be drawn into an experience which suggested more than it showed, due to the use of text-based or menu-driven interfaces with fairly minimal visuals. However, anyone that has logged enough time in front of the Football Manager games knows that this is entirely possible – and in the strategy world, Supremacy is a game that manages to draw a similar level of involvement from its players.

The game’s premise of interplanetary conquest is simple enough, with the goal being to colonise a succession of planets, in direct opposition to a foe who is attempting the same. You never see a great deal of the actual action, with small but perfectly informative animations depicting events such as the terraforming of a planet and the training of your troops, and there’s also very little sound to be heard.

If you want to track where the real atmosphere of Supremacy comes from, you have to look to the real-time text stream. While it initially appears to be fairly unexciting, the text box is where you’ll receive great news and where you’ll be subjected to angry declarations of intent by your rivals in galactic conquest. Before long, you’ll be going about your business not simply in order win, but also in order to annoy the CPU player. And let’s be honest – if you’re trying to deliberately annoy a fictional entity, you’ve probably been drawn into the game.