BBC story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8261272.stm) here.
Money quote:
Quote"The BBC Micro only had 32k of memory, but out of that came the screen and machine use, so Elite had to fit into 22k which is less than most emails these days," said Mr Braben
"We crafted every single byte and would work for hours just to free up three or four bytes so we could put in a new feature or ability.
"That level of concentration on things have been lost today when you have things that are many megabytes or even gigabytes in size," he added.
One of my all-time favorite games, and I had no idea it was created by 'Brits. I hope they do publish an updated version - although I admit the raster graphics of the original were just fine!
http://www2.b3ta.com/heyhey16k/
I've been looking for a similar game play in a modern design. I must say it's usually disappointing, even with the obscene amount of memory available to game developers nowadays.
Quote from: boulet;333138I've been looking for a similar game play in a modern design. I must say it's usually disappointing, even with the obscene amount of memory available to game developers nowadays.
Same for me.
Cracker of a game. There's an updated fan version titled Oolite, but I haven't tried it.
Also, The Lords of Midnight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lords_of_Midnight) was 48K, and was a complex strategy game set in a massive world where you could travel around in pseudo-3D (sorta). Then the creator used the same 48K to make Doomdark's Revenge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomdark%27s_Revenge), a game larger and more complex (although arguably less focused) than its precedessor.
Take that, programmers!
That ignores the poorly-written games that came out in the same year. Good programmers are good programmers, no matter what they write on. Same with bad programmers.
Oh hi guys.
I'm just registering to join the chorus here (and also so I can download attachments, search the forums and other stuff, should I need to).
Anyway, I wrote a useful if rather aggressive post about Elite on a CRPG forum for abrasive teenagers (http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=582591&highlight=#582591). Those who are interested in the remakes and so on may find it handy.
One thing to add: the guy who did The New Kind is supposed to be working on a new space game, called Courier (http://www.christianpinder.com/blog/), but you'll note he hasn't made any updates for a while. Must remember to pester him about it.
Welcome to theRPGSite!
Apparently the guys who wrote the original Elite, David Braben and Ian Bell fell out, and David has gone on to write/develop several sequels all of which have sucked badly.
If you want a purest experience of Elite, it has to be on a BBC Model B emulator or Commodore 64 emulator running these games. No other version comes close.
Elite is a seminal space trading computer game, originally published by Acornsoft in 1984 for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers. The game's title derives from one of the player's goals of raising their combat rating to the exalted heights of "Elite." It was written and developed by David Braben and Ian Bell, who had met while they were both undergraduates at Jesus College, Cambridge. Non-Acorn versions of the game were published by Firebird, Imagineer and Hybrid Technology.
Elite was one of the first home computer games to use wireframe 3D graphics with hidden line removal. Another novelty was the inclusion of The Dark Wheel, a novella by Robert Holdstock which influenced new players with insight into the moral and legal codes which they might aspire to.
Elite's open ended game model, advanced game engine and revolutionary 3D graphics ensured that it was ported to virtually every contemporary home computer system, and earned it a place as a classic and a genre maker in gaming history. Elite was a hugely influential game, serving as a model for more recent games such as Eve Online, Freelancer, Jumpgate, Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Wing Commander: Privateer, the Escape Velocity series and the X series of space trading games.
^^^Some of the most informative spam ever posted.
Congratulations. Your spam is worthy of notice.