FrontierAstro

All about the Elite and Frontier games from the 1980s and 1990s, plus a bit of astronomy.

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

In 1994 Hybrid Technology (publishers of Archimedes Elite) produced an Elite graphics demo running on a Gameboy. The full game never emerged. I wonder how playable it would have been! It was possible on a Nintendo NES, so who knows?

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

Elite guru Mark Moxon has recently published comprehensive but easy to follow guides to building the game from source. Now pointless changes like this are possible! This link is for BBC tape Elite, but C64 and Master (2nd Processor) Elites are there too.
https://t.co/fDNIgDAgYI

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

@ad7db @aleksieeben That was a great advert! 😃

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

Elite on the VIC-20? Impossible? Not any more, thanks to @aleksieeben who has produced a great conversion. You'll need a 32K expansion (or an emulator) but it plays really well. It even has Dodo space stations! Read all about it and download the game from https://t.co/ZzXubuyheL

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

Back in the days of physical media, games would often be re-released in a cut-down format a few years after the original. Budget Elite Plus for the PC emerged in 1996. The game was fine but the manual was a low-res scanned pdf on the CD. The big benefit was the much lower price.

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

The issue of AI in games development is a bit of a hot potato at the moment. So it's interesting to see projects like this one, which takes Mark Moxon's version of the BBC Elite demo program and adds some visual bells and whistles, including solid ships.
https://t.co/YTzIpRIOP6

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

@SerSquiggy 😅

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

@FoxyPickaxe Thanks for pointing this out, I love the colour scheme! I realise it's AI but I'm looking forward to the complete game being released!

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

@AGIThrive I don't recall that in the BBC game. Maybe it's the Trumbles mission in Commodore 64 Elite? You are offered a Trumble for sale for 5000CR, which isn't really a scam. You do get your Trumble, followed by a whole lot of Trouble!!

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

With hindsight it was such a ridiculously simple thing. But after days (weeks?) of routinely trading and fighting to build up your wealth and combat rating, the arrival of the first BBC Elite secret mission was an incredibly exciting moment. How easily pleased we were back then!

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

@racenerd2 No, I realise Elite was not ridiculously simple, of course 🙂
I was referring to the words "Incoming message", which generated such excitement!

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

Acorn Computers introduced the BBC Master machine in January 1986, and later that year Acornsoft released an enhanced version of Elite. The retail box still contained all the extras of the original game, many of which were sadly missing in the Superior Software re-release.

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

The colour scheme of the loading screen in Amstrad Elite varied according to which version of the game you were playing.

Tape - black space, blue engine plumes
Disc - blue space, cyan plumes
French/German - black space, orange plumes

Impress your friends with this fact today!

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

@SancastleAir Keith

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

@TommiSairo I've a feeling the Fer-de-lance was in the tape version, but not the disc.
If I ever find an emulator that can load the tape, I'll know for sure!

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

Elite for the MSX computer was an excellent but overlooked version of the game. It had a colourful display amd fast-moving graphics, albeit quite lo-res. A full complement of ships plus five absorbing missions all combined to make this the 7th best version of Elite of all time!

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

@SerSquiggy Is that why, for example, Zaonce went from being a tedious place (BBC version) to being scourged by deadly tree grubs? The galaxy layout looks the same as the Beeb version, but the system descriptions are all different!

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

@John_David_BiA The processed one, personally. Space is blacker and the colours of M27 are better.

[FrontierAstro @FrontierAstro]

Next time you see The Pleiades this winter, pay attention to the star circled in the photo. This is Pleione, a Thargoid forward base, despite being infected with an INRA mycoid in 3252. The location of the alien home world remains unknown, but Pleione is too close for comfort! 😧