The Story of 'Elite'

THE STORY OF ‘ELITE’.

(Image from wikipedia)
Of all the videogames that came out in the 80s, one in particular stands out. It featured a universe consisting of eight galaxies and some 2,000 planets. The player was given a ship, some money, and how they used them was their business. The game in question was ‘Elite’.

Elite was the creation of two students of Jesus College, Cambridge called David Braben and Ian Bell. Braben was studying math while Bell was studying physics. After being introduced to a BBC Micro and finding a common interest in programming, the pair decided to make a videogame. Braben was interested in making a space-based game and had previously used an Acorn Atom to program a three-dimensional expanding star field. Bell, meanwhile, had been working on a game called Free Fall. The two decided to team up and collaborate on a space combat game provisionally called ‘The Elite’.

(Image from elite home page)
During its two year creation period the game’s premise changed somewhat, but certain aspects remained intact. The 3D representation of a universe and combat similarly taking place on a 3D field made it into the final game. Just as ‘Space Invaders’ had a point to its gameplay (which could be summed up as ‘defend the Earth from an invading force’) so too did ‘The Elite’ have an overall goal. The player started off with the rating of ‘harmless’ and would need to travel through the universe looking for space pirates and other hostile forces to blast. In doing so, their rating would creep up until they reached the coveted rank of ‘Elite’.

Ultimately, Braben and Bell’s game would be one of the first to feature a seemingly infinite universe. This is all the more remarkable when it is remembered that they had an upper limit of 22K to work with. Amazingly, ‘Elite’s universe of thousands of planets took up a minuscule six bytes of storage; how was that achieved? The answer is that the planets did not exist all at once. Instead, they were pseudo-randomly generated using a technique similar to a Fibonacci sequence. The technique involved choosing two numbers to start with- called a ‘seed’- and a series of mathematical operations are applied and the result is a sequence of numbers. This sequence is then used to describe such things as the planet’s name, size and coordinates, with silly options ruled out by clever software design. With this method, the only thing that needs to be stored in memory is the original seed. Originally, this method was intended to create a universe of even larger proportions: one with 280,000,000,000,000 galaxies. But this was thought to be a bit over-the-top.

(Image from gamespot)
With the universe taking up such little space, there was code left to use on other areas. One of these was artificial intelligence for the enemy craft. In a game like Space Invaders, the enemy ships moved in predictable patterns, but in Elite the application of unique parameters for each craft (such as attacking, formation flying and defending) resulted in individualistic behaviour. Whereas nearly every other game that had come before necessitated a ‘shoot whatever moves” strategy, the ‘Elite’ player learned that such an aggressive approach might not always be prudent. For example, security forces might approach a craft that is nearing their planet. Provided the player does not represent a hostile threat, they may fly in formation with her and even provide covering fire if she needs defending. On the other hand, someone with a trigger-happy attitude would feel the full force of their wrath.

Of course, there were craft that were always hostile and sometimes they outgunned the player. Most shoot-em-ups have a system whereby an increase in the enemy’s strength is countered by the introduction of more potent weapons and armour for the player. Traditionally, there are two ways to obtain such upgrades. The first is that they are simply hanging around waiting to be picked up. R-Type is an example of a game that used that approach. The player encountered various orbs floating past. Colliding with these game a new weapon and because they were color-coded the player could decide whether a particular orb would provide the best weapon for the current situation. The other approach has the player collect some sort of currency (usually gold coins) and could be found in games like Forgotten Worlds. Again, this required thinking on the player’s behalf. Should they buy a weapon now, or save their currency for a more potent weapon later on? If they do wait, what are the chances of surviving the next level with what they have?

‘Elite’ would adopt the ‘purchase upgrades’ approach but Braben and Bell thought up a more interesting way to earn the cash than just picking up gold coins. This approach changed ‘Elite’ from just another shoot-em-up to a trading game. Ian Bell says the idea for a space trading game “probably arose in discussion with David Braben. I remember it was my idea but if he says otherwise he may be right. I had the “traveller” RPG in mind. David played ‘Space opera’. It was just obvious to us”.

So, as well as starting off with the rating of ‘Harmless’, the player also began with 100 credits and limited space to store cargo. More money would be needed and a legitimate way of getting it might be to buy something and sell it on at a profit. Doing so would require the player studying planetary data because what might be plentiful and cheap for one planet could be rare and expensive for another. For example, one planet might have an abundance of water, which the player could cheaply purchase. If they then travelled to a desert planet, their cargo could be sold at a much higher price, yielding a tidy profit.

Hang on, though, why bother to trade in the first place? The player could opt to become a kind of galactic highwayman, blasting other ships to smithereens and collecting any cargo left floating in space. Whatever path they chose, the player could be certain a cause-and-effect relationship would result. The player who deals in illegal goods gets rich more quickly, but they also earn the rank of ‘Fugitive’ and end up with the police on their trail. The decision to play as an honest trader also has consequences, because the more trading a player did the more likely it was that pirates would target them. These cause and effect relationships, coupled with the AI of the NPC craft, helped the player believe they were experiencing a living, breathing universe that constantly adapted to the decisions they took.

In a nutshell, Elite was revolutionary. In fact, some people argue that no other game during the 80s matched Braben and Bell’s opus for depth of play. But, although it is rightly hailed as a triumph today, in its early days many companies refused to publish it. The goal of most games back then was nothing more complex than achieving a position on a high score chart and it was hard for some to know what to make of Elite, whose ultimate aim was rather obscure and which did way with the points total. Complaints were also made about illegal activities such as drug running, but the fact that such practices were punished meant they survived intact. Eventually, the game was published by Acornsoft and it was they who asked for the original 280,000,000,000,000 to be reduced to a less mind-boggling scale. Before it was released, the game went into a production run of 50,000 copies, an unheard of quantity for the time.

(Image from gamestudies)
Elite would prove to be deathless. Lots of articles have been written, attempting to explain its longevity. Ian Bell puts its success down to “solid game design”. Sadly, some the Braben Bell partnership did not share its long life. Braben was always interested in producing a sequel but Bell’s enthusiasm dwindled as other interests took hold. An amicable agreement was reached in which Braben got exclusive rights to all sequels and mission discs in return for royalties on the first Elite. All seemed fine until Bell expressed unhappiness with the second instalment (called ‘First Encounters’) claiming it was not up to being a full sequel. This became the subject of a lawsuit that was settled for damages in Braben’s favour. Bell also claimed that Braben had not paid certain parties and was sued for libel, at which point he retracted. The two have not spoken since.

References:
‘The History of Elite’ by Matt Barton and Bill Loguidice
Wikipedia entry
‘Masters of Their Universe’ by Francis Spufford