Creation Of Elite Charted

Posted by simoniker on Monday October 20, 2003 @03:35AM from the another-witchspace-reference dept.

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.

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Best version of Elite by joshsnow · 2003-10-20 03:51 · Score: 2, Informative

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...