Starglider
| Developer: Argonaut Software | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Rainbird | Sound: |
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| Year: 1987 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Shoot’em up | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 1 | Rating: |
6/10 | |
The democratisation of home computing in the early ’80s strongly stimulated the software sector and video game industry, particularly in the United Kingdom (in the United States, the situation was more more chaotic).
At that time, video game programmers were often students who completed their projects in a matter of weeks, alone in their bedrooms. They would send their games on floppy disks to a publisher who handled distribution and was supposed to pay them a percentage of sales (royalties). In practice, programmers (like artists) met with varying fortunes. Not all were fairly compensated, or even credited.
I read an account (unverifiable, see batman76’s comment) of a friend of an independent developer who never received a response from the publisher, but stumbled upon his game in a shop’s aisle months later. There’s the opposite example of a young programmer who (supposedly) became rich overnight and conducted his short career like a rock star. I invite you to discover Matthew Smith’s story (in English).
This precarious business model continued on the Atari ST and Amiga, where many games were coded by amateurs, sometimes very young ones. Jeremy Elliott San, for instance, left school at 16, founded his company Argonaut, and four years later created a 3D shooter inspired by Star Wars (the 1983 arcade version). Starglider was released in 1986 on Atari ST. The Amiga version sadly didn’t take advantage of this new machine’s superior capabilities. Thus, we find the same “wireframe” 3D graphics, somewhat austere but smoothly animated.
Unlike its model Star Wars, the ship isn’t constrained to a predetermined path (what was known as an “on-rails” shooter). It moves freely in 360 degrees, controlled by mouse or joystick. Holding the button while moving forward or backward changes speed. Releasing the button allows for altitude adjustment. The “L” key launches a guided missile, controllable in first-person view. To recharge shield and laser gauges, land inside the dark blue hangar that resembles a toaster (or a raclette machine, I’m not partisan). To refuel, you must fly at low altitude between two blue obelisks.
And your mission? Oh, shoot at everything that moves, and everything that doesn’t. And stay alive, while everything that moves and everything that doesn’t showers you with missiles and continuous laser volleys. For me, it’s a title with historical value, but far too ugly, repetitive and difficult to hold my attention.
However, its historical value is far from insignificant. Starglider was a great success, allowing the studio to recruit other talented young programmers before developing a far more ambitious sequel…
Later, they took on the challenge of adapting Starglider to the NES console, before tinkering with a similar 3D prototype on the Game Boy! They caught the attention of Nintendo’s American representative (Pauline’s husband), who, highly impressed, invited them to collaborate with their research and development department in Japan. They completed their Game Boy game under Nintendo’s official banner (named X and released exclusively in Japan in 1992), before being tasked with developing the Super FX chip, then programming a certain Star Fox (Super Nintendo, 1993) alias Starwing in Europe, under the close direction of Shigeru Miyamoto (father of Mario and Zelda).
Starglider was accompanied by a novella written by James Follet, required by the copy protection.
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