The Making of ELITE (Computer Videogame)
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- čas přidán 12. 09. 2012
- Ian Bell's Elite pages: www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite
In this video you'll find the full documentary about the making of Elite with first person declarations by the authors of the game.
ELITE was a seminal space trading video 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. - Věda a technologie
When my dad walked in the door with a BBC Micro Model B, a 40-80 track switchable floppy drive, a Microvitec monitor and a copy of Elite, I went nuts. many hours on that game. And yes I did get to Elite with military lasers all round. I was a hunter in witch space :)
Damn! Your Dad must’ve been Musk to afford all that. I was on the C64 with the tape driver.
Respect to your dad!😊
I bought the game in 1984 for the Electron and was absorbed in it for a lot more than a few weeks. 30 years later I heard there was a new version of Elite so I had to give it a go. It exceeds anything we could have imagined back in 1984 but still retains enough of the original to make it familiar. There are quite a few middle aged commanders out there in the new Elite universe re-living our teenage years :)
+CMDR Sunburn "There are quite a few middle aged commanders out there" lol so true, just look on forums
"Loving the game!" says the 57 year old guy :-D
+CMDR Sunburn Yep. To be fair, most kids have no idea what Elite is. Not surprising, as the last Elite title was released in 95. 21 years ago now. (Excuse me while I dwell on all those years, and what the hell I actually did with them.) Now, I'm hooked on Elite Dangerous!
+CMDR Sunburn I thought u were going to write.. 30 years later.. someone knocked on the door and i realised i was still playing elite :) especially as that sentence came after "I was absorbed in elite for more than a few weeks".. 30 years later... etc :) hahah.. funny.
+CMDR Sunburn Just out of curiosity Sunburn, how old are you? I'm 47 next month I played Elite when I was what 15. I started with a ZX80 going on to a Vic20, CBM 64 and then an Amiga when I was 19. I've just bought a HTC Vive. All for this game. it's costing me a fortune and I'm loving it. I've bought the X55 Rhino and thinking of buying a Warthog at another £256. Hell I was gonna buy a one bedroomed flat as the ex missus sold my house. That's out of the window now. It'll be a 2 bedroomed flat minimum so I can have man cave and set up the Vive with room I can house it in. How our hobbies take over our lives.
You should try it in VR.
I was designing computer games at the time and Elite was so much better than my last release at the time (Meteor Miner) that I gave up being a games programmer, 1st career over (I was 8 years old at the time) the idea of putting a game together that big in 6502 assy code like I used but using massive data strings created using Fibonacci sequences was just alien to me at the time and couldn't see how I could compete. Was truly world changing that game.
Have you got back into it since now that there are more options available for putting together a game?
@@CaspianNomadyou mean that there is no competition anymore?
I learned c64 basic, but Amiga 500 I learned assembly. Created some games for fun.
@@jounisaastamoinen1099 very lucky of you to learn the same assembly language. Though MUL and DIV is so much better on x86 . And REP MOVS .. why don’t people celebrate this? Memcpy is even in the C standard library.
The guy somehow managed to fit a barrel full of beer in to a pint glass when he created Elite. Fantastic. At the time i was learning to program in BASIC and was frustrated that basic could only perform one command at a time. I was just about to try an assembly language when i suddenly discovered beer and woman.
"It would have been a shame if we had insisted on launching an application like Elite that was unfinished--truly unfinished."
My, how the times have changed.
That's not a spinning rocket, that's a Cobra MkIII
Unless my audio is WAY out of sync, it's a Viper on screen when he says that :)
EDIT: My apologies, just got the bit further on when it's the Cobra on screen and narrator says spinning rocket.
UrgentementeUK Ahh, I see. I thought I had been missing something really obvious, like a dial somewhere. Ha.
Thanks for the information.
Ah the old geezer doesn't know that.
Alex Cheetah now im gonna buy one because it was one of the first ever 3 dimensional products of computing!
i thort that is was a sidewinder
I remember it coming out and wanting it so badly. I had to wait until we could afford a floppy disc drive so I could play it on my BBC model B. Awesome game. It played so far into my imagination - I WAS there, flying that Cobra, fighting those pirates.
The comment in the video - they were worried people wouldn't understand it. Nope. We understood it! We were WAITING for it and we couldn't get hold of it fast enough!
I would love to see what Thorn EMI's reaction was after finding out the game they said wasn't marketable blew everything else away.
+Stephen Blane I guess someone lost his job in the process lol.
Well they aremt around now, so they lost their biggest leap into the games industry.
@Jules Thorn EMI, try and keep up with the conversation. 🙄
The same as Decca Records when they turned down a little known beat combo in the early sixties.
@@mrjoneseastend Was about to say the same :-D
I had the pleasure of playing Elite at the time, and the game changed me forever. Up until that point, I had only played he typical 2D fayre that was gaming. Once I played Elite, it changed me forever. Elite is the greatest game of all time, a visionary game, that thirty years ahead of its time.
Ohhh, it was exactly the same for me! I only got to play it at a friend's home at first, but it inspired me greatly.
What's insane is how oblivious I've been to this game, despite having played it as a kid. Even to this day I've been wanting to design a game that lets me do this, only to find out that the first 3D game ever made is almost exactly the kind of thing I was trying to recreate. Combine aspects of DOOM in to it and bring it to the modern age and you have the game I've been dreaming of. Something that feels like (for me, being an anime lover) living a story from cowboy bebop.
One of my favorite game from the late 90's was Space Rangers, and it was just a turn base, isometric variant of this game but with a lot less space to explore... HOW does a game come out in 1999 that isn't 3D, yet manages to have only a fraction of the area to explore. I've been playing the hell out of Oolite, the tribute game with a full compliment of expansions and I'm a happy, happy person. A free game that has captivated me more than an elder scrolls game ever has :)
That and I downloaded Elite: The Next Kind since it was offered for free, too.
I Agree
See you in elite:dangerous commander.
So glad the new Elite Dangerous is selling so well. The original 3D space sim and it's back!
Lassi Kinnunen yep, i can't see SC ever delivering. Look at what theyve done in the 5-8 years of development; basically nothing but pretty graphics. Not to mention the business model with those purchasable ships that dont exist. It's kind of sad because I really wantva rivalry between ED and SC to force both titles to innovate and one up each other. SC will probably meet the same fate as NMS on launch; the team was too ambitious and couldn't meet their goal.
The original was a sim based on the routines made by Bell. Elite Dangerous is a dumbed down arcade WW2 fighter in space game without any content and as far from a sim as can be.
@@hans-joachimbierwirth4727 why would you say something so edgy?
Edgy? Braben himself esxplained that he wanted an arcade ww2 fighter in space and that's what it is. A speed limit of 700 mph and boosting mechanics - that isn't a space sim at all but the most stupid shit ever in gaming history. A speed limit in space is something only retards could come up with or even just tolerate. I can't do that.
@@hans-joachimbierwirth4727 The only thing that is stupid shit, is your comment. When you are not making a game for a small niche market full of newtonian nerds, but for a audience that includes casual players, you gotta try to balance the realism and playability. Sure, speed restrictions even with FA off - that is as *unrealistic* as far as space flight goes, but I accept that, like other silly things like weapons and radar that have a reach of only few kilometres *in space*.
FE2 and FFE had better and more realistic newtonian flight, but were far from perfect, as games.
ED simulates SPACE very well, just not ship flight physics.
Many a sleepless night I had playing Elite in my early teens, wouldn't have changed it for the world, bloody brilliant times... and game of course :)
wasnt even born when all this happened...but i play elite dangerous now and i like seeing the history that was responsible for elite dangerous - possibly one of the greatest games ever being built by the same person as this video--and im an RPG gamer...
You missed out on Frontier: Elite II, the best of the bunch! I'd say even better than Elite Dangerous because they actually delivered on what they promised and didn't trickle feed everything as paid DLC.
@@bashkillszombies How a 1,44mb game was more full of data and good memories than this 90gb monster of a game
"... not just for hours but for weeks..."
I played it for months. I skipped school for this piece of art.
HrRueben Ditto that
It's decades for me now. lol
"People want to play for 10 minutes. People want 3 lives. They want a score..."
It's interesting how the same mentality permeates the industry and expectations of the mainstream audience to this day. I'm amazed that David and Ian had the mettle to pull this off, and thrilled that we still have modern games like Elite Dangerous that go against the tide. Currently playing on PS4 and am finding it a unique and deeply engrossing experience. I can only imagine how people felt when the original first released.
Bobio are you still playing ELITE??? I started May 2017 (Xbox) and still love it and can't wait to see what 2018 brings. I'm 44 this year and played the original on BBC b.
Yea lots of gamers prefer a quick n easy pleasurable experience and have not known the joy of playing elite I still try 2 convince my friend to play it with me but he's a cod fan hardcore.
It's worth remembering that the original computer games were ports or analogues from arcade games. Arcade games need to be short, time limited, and have a score so that players won't be on the machine forever, will still keep feeding coins into it, and will keep coming back in order to bat their personal best. On a game for a home computer, there's no reason to keep those limits.
I love David's company, Frontier Developments. Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster, Planet Zoo. It's good that someone with a passion for games is helping churn out really good ones today rather than the usual "Let's release another COD".
My brother Jan, PhD Nuclear Chemical Physics and I were the first to be awarded the ELITE BADGE! Because I had figured out how to kill the "invincible" ship, that was later confirmed by the developers as a game bug! 🏴
OOlite is an excellent update to the game, faithful to the original gameplay.
I'd only been working for a couple of years, but one of my early purchases was a BBC Bc Micro. I remember when Elite came out; it just jumped out at you from the shelf. I vought a copy during my lunch hour, and sneaked off to open it. It was enthralling. Folks today have no idea just how breathtaking the 3D wireframe graphics were - it was a huge leap over anything else. As was the gameplay, which by modern standards is very limitted, but at the time was incredibly immersive. I worke din a college, so we had rooms full of BBC B's. And pretty soon, those rooms were packed with peopel playing Elite! I got to Elite - it gave you a code you sent off. I still have the congratulatory letter from Acornsoft (though I did not qualify to enter into the competition they ran) and the enamel badge. Then I got a floppy dirve - from Watford Electronics I think - and got the disc cersin...and up came INCOMING MESSAGE - they'd managed to pack actual missions into the game as well! It was an amazing achievement.
This game taught me the meaning of the word ‘addiction’. We were lucky enough to have a BBC B at home - best Christmas present we EVER had by a mile - but our school also had a computer room with 8-10 BBC B’s in it and they were available to use each day for a couple of hours after school finished. Most nights every machine was running Elite, with an equally addicted child sat in front of it ...
Elite is my all time favourite game. I spent about a month playing Elite and doing little else during my uni vacation. Loved it!
Same, freaking awesome game
I can't thank these guys enough - Elite was my entire childhood ( I made deadly by the way!)
Part of the magic of programming when I was a kid was that no one knew enough to tell me that it couldn't be done. That was the early 80s and with BASIC. I sometimes wish I would have been able to stay with programming but I just didn't have access to the machines I needed. :/
It is never too late.
Greatest game ever in terms of how ahead of everything else it was at the time, the impact it had on the gaming industry (it created an entirely new genre for the next 40 years) and its vast scope given the hardware at the time.
Braben helped me on the phone once. Talked me through making an 8MB swap file so that First Encounters would run on my sub par IBM 486 SX.
486 SX?
That was a pretty good system, at least if you bought it when it first came out.
My first PC was a 386 SX.
It had a whopping 1 Megabytes of memory.
But I played "Aces of the Pacific" to death on it!
I played it from 1986 till 1989. Four years! Backups and multiple saves so that I didn’t lose my commander. Still only got to deadly. Lol
I got to deadly
I found Elite at a school lunchtime computer club in 1990 and have this week finally tracked it down and played it again. In 1990 I thought that this was the perfect game because of everything it did. The thing I like about this game is that because there wasn't much in the way of graphics back then, they had to focus on the storyline. That makes these games at least as good as some of the ones around today, despite the minimalistic graphics.
They all came from Star Trader back in 1974. The Star Trader source code evolved into Trade Wars, making it the ancestor of many subsequent space trader games, including Eve Online, the Wing Commander Privateer series and Elite series.
Also this video makes me nostalgic because the first coding language I learned as a teenager was QuickBasic ;)
But that "Trader" game wasn't really known widely, I've seen reference to then being inspired by a table D&D style game rather than a program.
The 8bit home computers came out and anything on mini or mainframe was effectiveky unknown.
The idea of the campaign game was totally new to us, I first saw it at Uni when colleagues ran a copy in one of the Comp. Sci. labs.
Greatest game ever. Even now I play an updated version on my high end PC. Can't wait for Elite Dangerous.
When they were talking about fitting the whole world in 22k I was thinking "did they not think to just load the data from the disk when needed" at which point I remembered this was a game on tape, it would take way too long to have to run through the tape to find the next galaxy you were going to.
The disk version was actually slightly larger...had more ships, and missions.
Two genius men. We have all benefited. Amazing guys
I can clearly remember alot of games from British developers, even though I grew up in the Netherlands. I can't imagine what gaming in the 80s and 90s would have been like without Rebellion, Bullfrog, Psygnosis or Probe. Go Brits! :)
Go Brits my ass. Games came from all around the world. Without the americans, western, central and eastern europeans and of course the asians games would be much worst than today. It was a collective effort.
@@Zodroo_Tint He says on his british invented computer over the british invented world wide web in the English language...
Still have my fully working bbc with disc drive and elite. Boot it up once in a while. I’m 52
There are so many journalist errors in this documentary. Like at 10:47 the commentator says that 22K of an email is the same “compuiting power” thay they used for the game. In any case it is a nice recount of history and I thank you for that whoever made the documentary.
They don't oversimplify the programming options to kids in those days. There was no google or internet to ask questions easily to the masses. If you (like me) bought a c64 games book to program your own games, unless you understood BASIC, you would spend all your spare time typing lines of code from said book. You then finally get to the end of 'game code' and RUN that baby.
Then it didn't work, you cried, then went back to the book and checked line by line to see what you did wrong; finding nothing different. All that was needed was 1 typo and it was all broken & no easy way to check for updates or corrections.
10 PRINT "GOOD TIMES"
20 GOTO 10
RUN
you needed more technical knowledge but you needed to learn fewer things. Learning how to code in Assembly is MUCH less information than knowing how to use Blender, Unreal Engine, and then scripting or C++. The game engines allow you to leap frog certain technical aspects of game programming, but learning how to use those engines is usually actually more information than you would need to just do it yourself. and of course saves you the hassle of having to learn how to do something that doesn't interest you. Game engines don't simplify things, they trade the ability to not have to do those things yourself for having to learn how to do things THEIR way.
That's probably the biggest stumbling block new game designers run into, they think these game engines are going to make it simpler. they don't, they actually make it more complex, and restrictive as well. They just make making a game less technical.
Braben & Bell should have got a knighthood for this game.
Back then they were into 3D gaming... now they are pioneers into VR gaming! Up to date game developers!
Had Elite on the Spectrum. Played it on the BBC Model B first, then I had to pre-order (yes even back then) it for my new Spectrum +. Loved it then and even now the new one has opened my eyes to the "Gaming Scene".
Thanks David Braben and Ian Bell!
its amazing what these guys achieved with a few kilobytes of memory. now its much easier for games development. We've got gigabytes of space even on a budget pc.
I gave a copy of this game to one of my neighbours in the 80's and he stayed up all night playing, he continued all the next morning and even ate his breakfast and lunch at the computer. His wife eventually lost all patience and switched the machine off without his permission. She complained "You need to spend some time with the kids you know, after all it is Christmas Day!"
It needed to be "kickstarted" so it confirms two things 1) The industry think this kind of games are uninteresting and they do not put money on this things 2) It exists a very large fan base loving this "Elite kind of games" (including me) so great that finally we'll have what we really want (not what the industry tries to sell us)...
Now Elite Dangerous will become the Best game ever made, Thank You Very much Ian, David and team for your hard work and your vision, We of the Gaming World will Love You for ever.
That's what many expected but it became the worst game ever made in gaming history.
And here I am, deploying my SRV out of my nearly fully engineered Anaconda looking for thargoid barnacle sites
Back in those days, I owned an Acorn Electron. I've bought many Big Ben Club magazines, and I remember typing in the code for Elite that was published in one of those magazines. My Electron had already been expanded with the Plus 1. I had also added some electronics, published by Elector, a magazine that developed and published all kinds of circuits. I have been able to make some changes to that circuit and was able to add not only 16 kB of sideways ram but an astonishing 32 kB of sideways memory. My Acorn Electron was faster than the BBC computer that it was derived from. Long story short, I've never been able to get Elite to run on my Electron.
I'm glad to have learnt so many things about computers and digital electronics. Fainted memories. But I'm having a smile on my face now.
I like how just as they say the big companies were sticking to 2D, they show a screenshot of Battlezone :-D
I was born in 1984 and I only found out Elite existed when it aome out on the PS4. I love the game and I've been playing it hard since! To the point of now wanting a gaming PC so I can play it in VR! I have PSVR but Elite is not in VR on the PS4. Probably because the PS4 couldn't run it in VR!
Either way the game is awesome and being British as well is even better! 🇬🇧
Commodore 64 + Elite = unaccountable hours searching for the elusive "Right on Commander!"
Thanks for this upload
Loved Playing Elite when i was a kid on my ZX Speccy
Thanks for original Elite and First Encounters.
EFE was 10/10, tho it had bugs, everything else in the design and music was a dream come true!
Thank you so much for this documentary.
Being an old Elite and Braben fan this is great to watch.
I afeel the same.
@@comrades6868 me to
17:30 Someone needs to practice their docking technique.
Reminds me of the time I first tried docking.... There was no survivors....
Kain I understand your pain. An analogue joy stick helped me a lot.
The instinctive way to approach docking, was to get as close as possible, which was entirely wrong of course. I found out that by moving away from the spinning surface, you could more easily align your craft. And I used a digital stick, on a C=64. The hardest thing was actually to spot the correct spinning surface where the docking bay was located. Even the docking computers could get it completely wrong and try to dock through the opposing side of the space station.
AudieHolland
I can't remember if this was the "official" way or I read it in a magazine somewhere.
Aim for a spot between the planet and the docking station, and go full steam ahead. Switch to the left or right view, whichever side the docking station was. Wait for the docking bay to be dead centre of the viewing window, and slow to a stop. Pivot around so the docking bay is dead centre of the front view window. Now creep up to the docking bay at 1/4 speed, making adjustments to the spin ( again, analogue joystick is king here). Tense every muscle in your body, half close your eyes and repeat your favourite swearword, until docking is complete.
anthakata Official or not, that's the best way. Because I believe that in the original Elite, the spacestation's docking bay was always facing the planet. After that, it was easy, even with a digital joystick. The thing is, once you've got the rotating correct, don't be afraid to go full throttle. But perhaps the C=64 version was slightly easier because it couldn't handle vector graphics as well as the BBC.
i never could get into elite unfortunately back in the 80's on my c64. always found the game too difficult to get into. i did realize how amazing the game was though. now i have just recently downloaded elite dangerous for my xbox one and am loving it :-) it's still a difficult game to get into,but finally i'm starting to get to grips with it after over 30 years ;-)
p.s i did look for targ for a laugh and actually found a system called targamu (am not sure if it is green though ;-) will have to find out.
+racefaceec90 You missed out so much Race, it was a stunning game. Also at the time was Paradroid. Another graphically poor (they all were then, kids are spoiled now) but so much in depth game. Viking raiders as well. Jet Set Willy. Manic Miner. Such a great time. no worries, no bills and you could just get on with gaming. Now it's bills, council tax and politics. I left school in 85, nothing, Thatcher Govt. I joined up. But I was and still am a gamer at heart. I have Xbox's, Playstations, the works. But Elite has always been the best in entertainment.
Meh, the NES and SNES had way better and more memorable games than any PC had back then
racefaceec90 I find the NES version a little easier to get into. Bit of a learning curve on dealing with the interface but still easier than the keyboard shortcuts on the home computer versions.
Great upload! Many thanks
This game was massive
And you could fit it on a large qr code
This changed the world. Amazing stuff.
Currently enjoying Elite Dangerous. I love and appreciate where it came from.
Bought it for C64 then PC and Oolite now on a Linux PC, that world just goes on
Happy 40th, Elite!
By 1984 Ian Bell was well known to Acornsoft, as they had already published a game of his. It was called "Free Fall".
17:15 It's 2,048 to be more precise. 8x256.
I remember we were very impressed by the game. I still am actually. And to this day, I do still play it.
I loved this game on the C64 it was awesome!!! Thanks for the Doc. :)
I can't fathom the math logic behind this game. But God did I love to play it. Hours and hours and hours. RIGHT ON COMMANDER!
Elite Dangerous has basically the same scanner today.
Geniuses. I had the pleasure of seeing it back in the day.
Originally had this for the Acorn Electron (then later on the Speccy and Commodore).
David Cook Way to go dude. :D I practically wore out Electron kybd playing Elite. I even fitted an extra 3.5mm jack socket so I could route the audio direct to a hifi. All this with just a 14" B&W TV...
mapesdhs It was a classic for sure (absolute genius from Mr Bell & Mr Brabham). I also played in on a B & W Telly back in the 80's (although we weren't missing anything as the game was totally monochrome on the Electron, lol). My brother was really good at it but I tended to be naughty and play as a fugitive.
David Cook
Best run I ever managed was 35t of narcotics bought for 0.2, sold for 107 each. The journey was one hell of a scrap. :D Normally I didn't trade in such stuff, but it was too much of a fun chance to pass up.
Strange thing, when I finally saw the Beeb disc version, I wasn't keen on the look of it, the game looked too colourful. I preferred the way it looked on a friend's C64.
In ED, I currently have 30M cash, saving for an Asp, using a maxed-out Cobra to run cargo missions of whatever kind make most moolah. :D Who can ignore 480K for a single shipment of slaves, hehe!
I'll never forget the original though, I played it for months. I even built a sort of cubicle out of chair backs & blankets to block out all unwanted light. :D
mapesdhs Good stuff. Yeah those pesky viper ships were always on my tail. I remember seeing the BBC Micro disc version being demonstrated on Micro Live programme, it did look really fast. The C64 one was good, then the Amiga had the vectors filled in.
Legendary.
Really interesting thanks for sharing this. I’ve been playing elite dangerous for years now. Probably because I loved the original late back on my spectrum
Wonderful times.
i had this for the speccy, and they was right about costing twice as much, i remember it cost £14.99 as many games at the time were £7.99 and below
Elite set a standard that many open world games today are still trying to achieve,
Actually Minecraft reminds me of elite, the pacing, the freedom, procedurally generated from a single seed to create a huge space/world to explore,
Im not sure if voxels were a thing before minecraft but if they weren't you can add
"new approach and use of graphics" to the list of similarity's.
Except minus trading, minus space, minus ships, minus space ports, minus pirates, minus space combat, minus upgrades, minus shields, minus missiles, minus ... well. Minus everything that made Elite Elite.
BaSH PROMPT
I meant in in there unusual use of free will, self driven goals and atmosphere not in there gameplay features,... as you would know if you had read all my post
just because two games have different settings and mechanics doesn't mean you can't compare them in other respects
P.S. hate to nit pick but minecraft does have trading and upgrades
Clara Pagett I got what you meant.
Super awesome. I played a lot, much more then a month, in my Msx Expert 1987-1988. Super fun the system. Be a pirate "like they are saying in Elite Dangerous" when you pick up a escape capsule. Or just trad picking up cargos. Buying a "Military Laser", so powerfull. Reaching more levels "Average, Above Average, Dangerous, Elite. Yeah, I need to try Elite Dangerous, for real :D
Did you play ED? :)
@@theodorleijonbergandreasse3228
Hey Man, how are you :D
I bought it some time ago, but never even installed. Always letting it for after some other games. I played the combat demo though, really liked it :D
@@ivanfidelis dang you should hop on now then! It's a great game and a great experience.
Saved my paper round money for this. Still remember that day when it arrived. That big black shiny box. I was in my own universe for weeks.
I remember it came with a novella that helped immerse you into the world as well.
Frontier was the one I fell in love with. I know everyone points to Elite as being the turning point, but for me Frontier: Elite II was. I spent so much time on that game, looking back it's just pure silliness. up to that point Ultima III Exodus was the game I had spent the most time on. Played a lot of games since then, but I've never played a game more than I did Frontier, not even the mmorpg's. Though No Man's Sky will probably eventually surpass it, finally.
This video would have had so much more attention as soon as the remake was announced on kickstarter.
Nah. only people who played the game back then would be interested. I know I did and it was hard for me to watch it in 240p. I figure most kids today wouldn't touch anything below 480p.
true.
Right on Commander!
A fascinating tale, a classic game.
Elite was amazing guys thankyou very much
still my fav game ever
I spent months playing this game in the 80’s and I’ve never been as satisfied with any game since, other than champ manager 2
Such a great game. Played it on the ZX spectrum, Atari ST and the acorn Archimedes. The St had the best looking Interface but the Acorn Archimedes was the smoothness
loved that game.spent many an hour as a kid on that.i had it on the speccy
thinking i must have a look at the new elite dangerous.
22KB Goddamn. Never played the original but the sequel absolutely blew me away, whole 3d galaxy which fit on a floppy disc.
All hail David and Ian...
I spent months playing Elite on the Amiga..... I got down to the Mission where the Thargoids had taken over all the space stations but even with a 15 hour stint I could not finish that mission... anyone help?
Awesome! Just awesome!
Would anyone please tell me when this mini-documentary was produced?
Excellent post. I loved the game but never found the missions. I could not afford it when it came out on the Spectrum but later owned it on the Atari St.
Perhaps they weren't included, they weren't hard to find on the original BBC Micro floppy version but weren't included on cassette
The Commode 64 version was brilliant. The Amiga version had better graphics, but the gameplay was not as good.
Very inspiring
I didn't have Elite in my c64 but on PC, I played a lot, specially Frontier Elite 2. Then in the modern days, I played games like X2 and X3... sadly this kind of games are apparently of "non interest" We need more games like this... Elite is really an epic, wonderful classic game.When I have time, I have to test the improved C128 version on my real machine. ;)
Blimey, who did the research for this? Love the way they claim that all games were 2D, even as they show Atari's Battlezone, which was of course a 3D wireframe game.
Also a little bit hyperbolic when it suggests that Elite somehow kickstarted the UK games industry. It was a big hit and an influential game, but a home computer games industry had already been in existence in the UK for several years at that point.
***** Star Raiders? That was a sprite-based pseudo-3D game. It wasn't true 3D, and it wasn't an open world game. You had a specific mission, which was to clear all sectors of enemy craft. Its combat was closer to that of Missile Command or Tailgunner than to Elite. Very little overlap in tech or mechanics.
***** Star Trader was a text-based game (with a map) written in BASIC. So its similarities to Elite are:
1. It involved trading
2. It involved space
You're REALLY stretching here.
***** Where and when did they make that claim? Sounds like something you made up.
KaitainCPS Battlezone wasn't on home computers at the time. what's being claimed is that at the time, the big companies thought it was impossible to do on HOME COMPUTERS. something which the creators of elite made work with a bit of creative thinking approaching the programming method.
ert000 I'm sorry, but the quote is, "Those early 2D games were produced by some of the biggest companies in the world, like EMI and Atari", and it says this while showing Atari's "Battlezone". At the very least that's lousy editing.
Years later...
Elite:Dangerous
Is burning alive.
Its dull, lifeless and lacks the charisma of the original.
Ive lived long enough to see my heroes fall.
i remember learning how to sidestep the protection in this game to make copies. But every person who owned a bbc b bought the game, so i dont think they would have been disapointed. lol
November 2020 and I’m still playing Elite. Slightly better graphics these days, but the ‘feel’ of the game is still the same as it was in 1984.
Sean Murray inspiration.
Giovanni Guimaraes except Sean Murray tried telling the world this type of game was his innovation.
no he didn't. you need to go back and watch the interviews if you really think that's what he said. I'm a bit puzzled as to why you would think he told the world this type of game was his innovation. You're either trolling or you've been listening to too many trolls.
'This was the game that gamers had been waiting for'..... No! This was the game that created gamers.
Wonderful to watch o7
I played first in the late 80's and I play it now. I give it a galaxy of stars and I highly recommend it. Maybe i will see you in the black, sometime. o7 Commanders
i'd like to see a documentary like this about Frontier Elite II.
( 4:04 "...those early 2d games..." - shows 3d game. lol. )
240p, we meet again
PirateFromVoid greetings from the future