Best original BBC micro games?

Post by **Samwise** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 1:35 pm

Pop quiz.

What are the best *original* BBC micro games? i.e. groundbreaking games that were originally released on the BBC before being ported elsewhere and, possibly, even defined a genre.

To start:

Definitely:
Elite (obviously)
Thrust

Maybes:
Chuckie Egg (released across 3 platforms simultaneously, but original idea came from the Spectrum author)
Exile (not groundbreaking but a very good example of an arcade adventure which was ported to other platforms)
Repton (a little too close to Boulderdash, perhaps?)
Way of the Exploding Fist (originally released first on C64 but it was actually developed on a BBC B+)
Granny's Garden (was this released on the beeb first?)

What other classic games can our community claim as our own?

Sam.

Samuel Pickard · Post by **Samuel Pickard** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 3:42 pm

Geoff Crammond's Sentinel (still the game I play the most) is often cited as being the first "Virtual Reality" game. Bolo is reputed to have started on the Beeb (http://bishop.mc.duke.edu/bolo/intro/ & http://www.stairwaytohell.com/lostandfo ... epage.html) as well.

jon28 · Post by **jon28** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 2:26 am

Way of the Exploding Fist (originally released first on C64 but it was actually developed on a BBC B+)

Is this definetly true? I've read some articles which say it was definetly C64 first with no mention of the BBC, developed in Australia - did they even have the BBC? Besides which is wasn't really an original was it?

Wasn't Thrust just a rip off of Gravitar?

And Repton is way too close to Boulderdash.

The big problem answering this question is that once you say Elite it kind of ends the discussion. For me at least.

Post by **Samwise** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 9:59 am

jon28 wrote:Is this definetly true? I've read some articles which say it was definetly C64 first with no mention of the BBC, developed in Australia - did they even have the BBC?

Well, the only two links I can find off the top of my head aren't definitive, but I'm fairly certain I've also seen the claim in more authorative sources (e.g. edge magazine):

http://bbc.nvg.org/history.php3
http://www.bbcmicrogames.com/news.html

The beeb was the preferred development environment of the author at Beam Software (acquired by Melbourne House).

Besides which is wasn't really an original was it?

There were three one on one martial arts games which were developed almost simultaneously. It was pipped to the release post, I think, but I think it can hold a claim to defining the genre from the start.

Wasn't Thrust just a rip off of Gravitar?

Now that I didn't know ... :/ I always suspected but I never did find a similar arcade game. D'oh. It was still widely ported ... but, yes, knowing that I'd probably drop it to the definitely maybes category.

And Repton is way too close to Boulderdash.

Although, surprisingly, the author claims to never have played the latter. He saw a review of it, tho ...

The big problem answering this question is that once you say Elite it kind of ends the discussion. For me at least.

When it comes to the holy 8-bit wars surely we must have another definitive, ground-breaking title to offer up? I'm clinging to Granny's Garden atm ...

melchett · Post by **melchett** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 10:23 am

jon28 wrote: Is this definetly true? I've read some articles which say it was definetly C64 first with no mention of the BBC, developed in Australia - did they even have the BBC? Besides which is wasn't really an original was it?

We could always ask this guy:

Andy Payne

melchett · Post by **melchett** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 10:29 am

jon28 wrote: And Repton is way too close to Boulderdash.

But Repton is MUCH better

BeebInC · Post by **BeebInC** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 12:49 am

Way of the exploding fist, the original (the c64 version) was definitely written on a beeb, I can remember reading the article (interview with the author), and it is probably in the loft some where too....

Maybe it was either in the Big K or C&VG

Kecske Bak · Post by **Kecske Bak** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 6:48 pm

The article about WOFEF being written on a BBC Micro was published in "Your Computer".

There is also an article on "By Fair Means Or Foul" in one of the Beeb Magazines where the programmer talks about this too.

jon28 · Post by **jon28** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 7:45 pm

There were three one on one martial arts games which were developed almost simultaneously. It was pipped to the release post, I think, but I think it can hold a claim to defining the genre from the start.

There is an article in Retro Gamer magazine this month on karate / beat-em up games in which it states....

and although Fist also began life as an independent vision, Barnett admits that once work had begun and he saw Karate Champ in the arcades, he was profoundly inspired by the slick gameplay and reinvented some of the ideas he had seen

Fist was also released in 1985, with Kung Fu Master, Karate Champ and Kung Fu being released in 1984. I'm not saying Fist isn't good (it was and is), I'm just not sure it was genre defining or that original.

Besides which, Shaolins Road was the best karate game.

I feel an urge for Geoff Crammond to get a game in there somewhere.
- Was Sentinel released before the Freescape games?
- Was there anything like Revs at the time?

I also feel Granny's Garden should get a look in as well. With the BBC the main school computer, I'd guess there weren't too many educational games available for other computers at the time.

I can't confirm the Thrust - Gravitar link. I think I read somewhere that Thrust was a copy and having read up on Gravitar it does seem very similar. I haven't been able to get Gravitar working yet to check it out (the vector graphics don't show up on my TV very well).

Its amazing how many games were copies, I've found others recently through playing Mame that I didn't know about.

Jon.

AJW · Post by **AJW** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 11:25 pm

Why was Exile not groundbreaking?

Post by **Samwise** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 11:42 am

AJW wrote:Why was Exile not groundbreaking?

I'll have a stab at answering this ... because it was pre-dated by other arcade adventure titles? It's a great implementation and also has 100% beeb origins, but it didn't define it's own genre in the same way as, say, Elite did. There are many earlier examples of both good and bad games in the same vein.

Sam.

Thu Mar 30, 2006 12:49 pm

Hmmm, I'd say, to be honest, that I can't think of any title which attempted to create as 'free-form' a world before Exile did.

Of course, the 'arcade adventure' genre existed many years before, but none attempted to recreate real-world dynamics, behaviour, or allowed you to literally do whatever you wanted with any objects you found. Prior to Exile, gameplay mechanics were limited to using objects in particular places (by means of a 'use' button), a la Citadel, or the player was constrained in some other way, but in Exile, the player is free to throw objects around, set fire to them, dislodge them with projectiles, or do anything he can think of to solve a problem, and there is no right or wrong way - whatever the world allows, you are free to do.

The whole beauty of Exile for me, is that everything in the world possesses particular attributes which are modelled generically, and then after that, throw them all together and it "just works" (a great demonstration of this being that Exile still works perfectly even when it's asked to do things it shouldn't be able to do, like firing other game objects as weapons). I think it was way ahead of its time, but certainly feel free to put me straight if there were other titles which managed this prior to Exile.

BeebInC · Post by **BeebInC** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 3:16 pm

What about Castle Quest was that out before Exile? That allowed you to dislodge other items and such

Post by **Samwise** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:04 pm

I can see Rich's point and I think maybe my use of the word ground-breaking should be replaced with the word genre-defining.

I certainly wouldn't want to understate Exile's achievements and it undoubtedly broke through a lot of the technical boundaries of the beeb and really pushed it to the limits whilst bringing a lot of new ideas to the table. However, when you bring it out of the beeb world and into the wider audience of computer/video games in general, it's impact is somewhat lessened, especially when compared with later games on platforms with better resources (IMHO, a classic game is one which can stand to be compared against its modern descendants).

When I started the topic, I was looking to identify those 100% original beeb games which made such an impression that they are held aloft as classic milestones by all gamers, not just us beeb-heads ...

Exile definitely has a claim (which is why I put it in the maybe list) - it was certainly successful enough to be ported to other platforms. I'm just not sure it was *so* original as to pervade the non-beeb gaming community. Certainly, I've not heard of any examples of later games being compared against Exile, which is usually the yardstick of whether a game has made an indelible mark ...

To this day, a game like X2 and their ilk cannot be reviewed without mention of Messrs. Bell & Braben's classic.

Sam.

jon28 · Post by **jon28** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:04 pm

Castle Quest was definetly a landmark BBC game, not sure about comparing it to other platforms at the time though. Its a pity it wasn't a bigger game with more to do - I went back to it and completed it the other day and I found it a bit of a let down.

Castle Quest was out a long time before Exile.

I must admit I missed Exile originally and finally gave it a go last night. I couldn't really figure out the controls or what I was supposed to do. Are there instructions available anywhere?

Whilst its not really relevant here, I was surprised to read in the new issue of Retro Gamer that Gauntlet was not an arcade orignal. In fact it was based on an earlier Atari 2600 game. You learn something new every day.

Jon.

Post by **Rich Talbot-Watkins** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:55 pm

I must admit I missed Exile originally and finally gave it a go last night. I couldn't really figure out the controls or what I was supposed to do. Are there instructions available anywhere?

Exile is definitely worth persevering with - play it with Sideways RAM for the sampled sound and bigger screen, and just fling yourself headlong into it with few background details, and just try things out. I'm sure you'll find it as captivating as I did, the first time I ever tried it. Be aware that the game is absolutely huge, and as you enter the first 'main' chamber, you've not even touched the surface yet...

Here are some of the keys to get you started...

Q,W - run/fly left or right
P,L - fly up or down
, - pick up object (hold down and walk against it)
S - store held object in pocket
G - get object from pocket
M - drop held object
. - throw held object
O,K - aim up or down (firing or throwing)
I - centralise aim
Space - fire weapon/use held object
R - remember current position (can remember up to 4 positions)
T - teleport to last remembered position
f1-f5 - select weapon (initially you don't have a weapon though...)
cursor keys - look around

and the bizarre one:

shift-f9 - prepare for savegame.
(Afterwards you have to press Break, and reboot the game, but if your emulator has 'save state', that'll undoubtedly be easier)

There are other keys too, to do with sounding whistles, and actioning your jetpack booster, amongst other things...

In Exile, you never actually die, but are automatically teleported to your last remembered position when you lose too much health. If you run out of remembered positions, you're taken back to your spaceship. Not all creatures are enemies; some are even fond of gifts... A door's strength is indicated by its colour - if you have the little green remote control unit and the appropriately coloured key, you can probably open them without trouble... otherwise you might need to resort to brute force if the door is weak enough...

Have fun!
</thread_hijack>

ivor_the_injun · Post by **ivor_the_injun** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 8:19 pm

Slightly random, but how about something like Great Britain Limited?

Text only, very primitive, but still one of the only examples I can think of where a computer game has tried to simulate politics.

And I can't have been the only person playing it that nearly killed the computer after, having apparently won an election, you were told you'd actually lost because two other parties had formed a coalition.

Also, am I right in thinking that Ultimate classics such as Knightlore and Atic Atac came out on the Beeb a couple of weeks before they were released on the Speccy?

ivor_the_injun · Post by **ivor_the_injun** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 8:24 pm

Similarly random - was there any game before Dunjunz on any computer that enabled four players to play simultaneously using only the keyboard?

As far as I can recall, there was no way of playing 4 player Gauntlet on the C64 with all the players using keys, so I'm guessing other platforms were the same.

For that matter, did anyone ever manage to get four players playing Dunjunz simultaneously? I always found that the keyboard was crowded enough when there were only two playing.

Also, and while I acknowledge it's just a little arcade game where you collect stuff and run away from baddies, I have to say that I don't think I've ever played anything remotely like Savage Pond.

...And were there any other computer game/board game hybrids before Brian Clough's Football Fortunes?

...And weren't Beeb owners the first to get something like The Quill? (Not a game, I know, but certainly something which radically changed the world of adventure gaming)

...And wasn't Southern Belle the first game to simulate a steam train? (Am reaching now, I know)

Moist_Mog · Post by **Moist_Mog** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 8:46 am

...would have been a game I'd have perservered with if you hadn't had to start from the beginning every time. Of those that could be completed, I hardly ever finished BBC games, whereas I finish pretty much every PC game I play.

AJW · Post by **AJW** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 11:59 pm

"Absolutely huge" is of course a slight understatement

re. Exile.

Will there ever be a sequel/conversion?

charlie · Post by **charlie** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 9:00 am

Rich Talbot-Watkins has actually covered the exile keys comprehensively, with one exception. If you want to proceed reasonably far, you will need the boost key - on the original I think it may have been the @ key, on the Mac version of BeebEm that I use the boost key is the [ key, which is a good place for it to be as it next to the thrust key (P).
A simple test to see whether or not you've found it is whether you can move the cannon in the ship direclty below your ship (the pericles?) to get the grenade.
I did actually play Exile through in the not too distant past - although I did use a walkthrough that I can no longer find (maybe it was on 8bs.com.) Although it was very satisfying to finish - the ending was quite low-key - probably due to mempry restrictions.

AJW · Post by **AJW** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 12:28 pm

There's at least 3 walkthroughs Acorn User; MicroUser and Electron User Group.

Post by **Rich Talbot-Watkins** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 1:14 pm

You can actually get into the cannon spaceship without the booster - just flying upwards with a 'run up' from the bottom allows you do budge the cannon enough to get past.

Just playing it now, I did remember some other useful keys I'd forgotten about though:

CTRL - lie down
TAB - flip around

and, as you say:

@ - use jetpack booster (which you don't have to start off with)

It's such a great game... now if only I could destroy that irritating bird...

mjforbes · Post by **mjforbes** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 2:39 pm

jon28 wrote:I must admit I missed Exile originally and finally gave it a go last night. I couldn't really figure out the controls or what I was supposed to do. Are there instructions available anywhere?

From "The BBC Lives" ....

key summary for Exile:

EXILE Keyboard Controls

Movement:
Q - Thrust left (and walk left)
W - Thrust right (and walk right)
P - Thrust up (and jump)
L - Thrust down
TAB - Turn
CTRL - Lie down
@ - Boost motion (use the : key on the BBC Master Compact)

Teleportation:
R - Remember location
T - Teleport

Objects:
, - Pick up object
M - Drop object
. - Throw object
S - Store object in pocket
G - Get object from pocket
SPACE - Fire weapon (or trigger held item)
Y, U - Whistles

General:
O - Raise aiming angle
K - Lower aiming angle
I - Centralise aiming angle
V - Volume
COPY - Toggle pause on/off
SHIFT - Used in combination with a function key - transfers energy to
current weapon from weapon chosen with the function key
Cursor keys displace the screen

Function keys:

f0 f1 f2 f3 f4 f5 f6
f7

Super- Run Game Status View Catalog Load Save Score
Default
visor position position position breakdown
position

Game Jetpack Pistol Icer Blaster Plasma Protection
gun suit

(the above table should be viewed in a non-proportional font)

Post by **Samwise** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 2:14 pm

Ahhh ...

I have another candidate.

Not really a paradigm shift, but how about XOR:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XOR_(computer_game)

That came out on the beeb first, didn't it?

Sam.

GarethW · Post by **GarethW** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 8:46 am

Difficult to think of original games (with the exception of Elite natch, but that's been covered). Here's my thoughts (regardless of whether they were good games or not).

Bumble Bee - a nice take on the Pac-Man formula - moving walls I think that's quite original
Star Force 7 - Essentially chess in space - loved this when I was younger (reminds me of a very primative version of Homeworld).
Starship Command - Yes it was a shoot 'em up, but I don't know any that rotated the screen

SarahWalker · Post by **SarahWalker** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 10:15 am

Bumble Bee was a clone of the arcade game Lady Bug. The other two were original though I think.

Kecske Bak · Post by **Kecske Bak** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 11:26 am

My favourite original arcade game was "Estra". I'm not sure if the BBC Micro or C64 version came first, but it is an incredibly well designed game, and is pretty much the only arcade game I play these days (I regard Repton as a puzzle game).

"Powerplay" seemed a pretty original game when it was first released.

And I thought that Elixir was a very original game too - and given that one of the things I do for some pennies is produce platform games in Flash using vector graphics I think it's pretty much ahead of its time. It wasn't the gameplay in Elixir but the way it was done technically. And as I said, it took until Flash came along for games like this to become common - it was WAY ahead of its time!

Incidentally, were there many programmable games around before Repton Infinity - down to having their own programming language? And wasn't the programmable cat in "Dr Who And The Mines Of Terror" pretty original too?

Jeremy Grayson · Post by **Jeremy Grayson** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 7:42 pm

jon28 wrote: Castle Quest was out a long time before Exile.

To pick up on a few points;

Castle Quest did indeed precede Exile by some margin - spring 1985 versus Christmas 1988. It wasn't the first arcade adventure, I don't think, as the little-known Micropower / David Hoskins effort Devil's Domain had already been around for a while, but it was certainly one of the first and still among the best.

Bolo was definitely BBC Micro in origin, but the sheer size and scope of the project proved too much to execute successfully.

Great Britain Limited by Simon Hessel came out as early as 1982, I believe, so would have predated similar products UK-PM by IJK and 1984 by Incentive.

Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)

Jeremy Grayson · Post by **Jeremy Grayson** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 7:45 pm

jon28 wrote:

- Was there anything like Revs at the time?

Yes - Software Invasion's 3D Grand Prix and Chicane by Kempston, both of which are hugely inferior products.

Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)

stardot.org.uk

Best original BBC micro games?

Best original BBC micro games?

Exile...

Elite Keys