Creation Of Elite Charted

Thanks to The UK Guardian for their book excerpt focusing on the creation of classic 3D space shooter Elite. The piece is introduced: "Computer games weren't very good in 1982.. which was what prompted two teenage mathematicians to create the cosmos of their dreams, making them a fortune and inspiring computer nerds the world over", going on to explain why Elite, originally for the BBC Micro but with "the best conversions... for the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Acorn Archimedes" innovated in 3D graphics, complex trading systems, and "having the computer generate the game universe" for the player. However, nothing can explain Elite: The Musical.

oh really?

[GreatTeacherMusashi]

However, nothing can explain Elite: The Musical. nothing can explain Lobster magnet or any of the other bits of crap all over the net XD tis 'splainable :P

Best version of Elite

[joshsnow]

Read the Article on Saturday - was surprisingly good.

The article mentions that Acornsoft, the original publishers, didn't want to pay royalty rates as high as Braben and Bell wanted, so they retained publishing rights enabling them to sell those rights at auction to BTSoft, leading to Elite on other platforms.

IMO, by far the best version produced was for the Acorn Archimedes in 1992 - circa 10 years after the original.

Many happy hours as an undergraduate whiled away back then...

Suprisingly good

[Hell O'World]

I agree, very interesting article. But no pics?!?

Current successor to Elite

[PeteyG]

If you loved the freedom and challenge of Elite back in the day, or Origin's Privateer a bit later... I would strongly suggest you check out the game Vega Strike [sourceforge.net]. It looks good, plays good, is open source, and probably has even more freedom than Elite.

If Elite was your thing, it's worth a look.

Now: Shareware

[neglige]

Frontier (Elite 2) is available for download [eliteclub.co.uk] and can be registered for just 5 UK-Pounds... I don't know the exact number of galaxies included, but there were more than 256...

Why no new Elite?

[Sheetrock]

I played Elite 2 on the Amiga for awhile and thought it was pretty solid. Why aren't they making a new one?

Ditto with Starflight. Both series had the gaming down cold, and I'd like to see what could be done with them using today's technology.

Re:Why no new Elite?

[Fenresulven]

They are... [frontier.co.uk]

Re:Why no new Elite?

[blincoln]

The genre doesn't sell well anymore.

X: Beyond the Frontier [gamespot.com] got good reviews, but it seemed to tank in stores. I bought a copy for $4.99 a few months after it came out that I've been meaning to play for over a year now.

I thought they meant...

[xgamer04]

"3L33+"

Link to PC version

[Pvt_Waldo]

http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/pc/index.htm

Now when is someone going to do like a "Tenebrae" version with OpenGL, etc? :^)

Elite: The New Kind

[GusCubed]

http://www.cjpinder.clara.co.uk/elite.html

A guy called Christian Pinder successfully re-engineered a C version of Elite from the original Assembler source. It uses the Allegro library.

I spent many hours reliving my misspent youth a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, David Braben, who had been turning a blind eye to what was a possible infringement of his IP, asked him to pull the source and binaries as someone had ported CP's Elite:TNK to the GBA. The timing couldn't have been much worse as Braben's comp

The book it is from is worth reading

[cryptogryphon]

The article is from Chapter 3 of Francis Spufford's "Backroom Boys" [amazon.co.uk]. I enjoyed the book immensely.

As the subtitle suggests it is unashamedly British in outlook, but celebrates engineering with six anecdotal stories that would warm the heart of any geek (or at least allow them the odd knowing chuckle).

As well as Elite, it covers Britain's space program (Black Arrow, Blue Streak etc.), Concorde (topical), cellphones, the Human Genome, and a reprise on Britain's space program with Beagle 2. Not a proper review I know, but a recommendation all the same.

Re:The book it is from is worth reading

[kisrael]

How big is the book? Is it only like 6 times the length of that article? It sounds kind of interesting, but not sure if it's worth the bother if there's not a lot to it...

none

[Flingles]

But they were both interested in the same things, and they were both better than most people at doing those things, which made them natural allies and collaborators.

To a good half of their fellow students, of course, they were just indistinguishable nerds.

LOL@them

The things we play

[Daikiki]

I've been playing Eve Online [eve-online.com] for a while now, and it really feels as much as a massively multiplayer Elite as anything possibly could. There are thousands of systems, each with their own market of supply and demand, there are dozens of ships and hundreds of upgrades a player can bolt on to them. Players go out hunting pirates, running missions, doing trade runs, or even mining asteroids. If you've ever spent time on Elite and wondered what the game would be like if there were thousands of other people playi