Saturday, April 11, 2015

Mostly Harmless

I had a moment yesterday dashing across Smith Street to avoid a chugger and realised if I was hit by the 86 tram while avoiding a smiling Englishman with a clipboard, my last blog post would be about Mike Hosking. That made me feel sad. There was another chugger on the other side of Smith Street so my dash of death was a pointless one and that made me feel sad. The chugger outside Woolies felt sad as I avoided his gaze and dashed inside to buy something I didn't need. That was too much sadness for me to bear so I decided to write a post about something that made me happy. And here it is.
Squeeeeeeee!
This is a computer. But not just any computer. This is a BBC Model B computer. Back before the BBC was a puppet with Jeremy Clarkson's hand up its bum, they made educational programmes like this one, and for one programme about computers called by someone very clever 'The Computer Programme', they hired a company called Acorn Computers, no relation to Apple, to build a computer for the presenters to pretend they knew how to program. Thus the greatest computer the world has ever seen was born. I just read the BBC Model B also featured in a show in Catalonia called, 'Connecta el micro, pica l'start!' (exclamation mark and italics added by me to enhance Spanishness), and surely this is the greatest computer programme show title the world has ever seen.

I never owned a BBC Model B but my brother did...I think I've sort of written about this before...one moment...yes I have, here. Anyway, my brother used the BBC to learn how to code and now travels the globe fighting crime with a big 'W' on his chest. I used the BBC to play games and spent the next 20 years dressing up as animals for children. The BBC had lots of great games, but one was greater than the sum of all the others, and it's name was Elite. OMG. Even typing the name makes me feel all wobbly and my fingers involuntary settle on the keys A, S, X, <, > and ? I'd better calm down and find a picture for you so you can see what I'm all juiced up about.
Squeeeeee!
OMG! OMG! Look at that. That's a Cobra MkIII, and maybe a Cobra MkI, and I think two Mambas all looking to dock in a Coriolis space station. All the ships were named after snakes. How cool is that? Now, if you think this game looks pretty damn awesome from the cover of the the box, wait until you see a screenshot of the real thing.
Squeeeeee!
That's what it looks like when you're about to dock in a Coriolis. Look at the beautiful white lines. Elite was all white lines. In fact I suspect Grandmaster Flash wrote his hit 'White Lines' while playing Elite. I'll see if I can find a picture of the opening screen to really blow your mind.
Squeeeee!
I know, I know. It's amazing. That's a Cobra MkIII and it rotated forever unless you pressed 'Y' or 'N'. Sometimes when Dean was out playing soccer or something, (I played for one season but was shit and I think even the Nomads 13F's were pleased to see the back of me), I could watch the Cobra spin for hours, almost crying with the majestic pallid beauty of it. What made it even more special was this was the ship you flew and no matter if you pressed 'Y' or 'N' you got to fly it...for a fucking long time, or at least until Dean came home and kicked me out of his room. The colourful box at the bottom is your flight control screen and I can still tell you what it all means without cheating by using Phone-A-Google and I know you don't care but I'm going to right now!

FS - Forward Shield
AS - Aft Shield
FU - Fuel
CT - Cabin Temperature
LT - Laser Temperature
AL - What you can call me
SP - Suppressive Person
RL - Rod Latham
DD - Smash
1,2,3 - Testing Testing

It's amazing how it all comes back. Elite was a LONG game. It was the test match cricket of the gaming world and you could play for five days solid and still come away with no result. But what a journey to nothingness it was. The gameplay went like this. I'll post another screenshot to help out.

Squeeeee!
Those blobs are all planets and their names are embedded in my subconscious like stones in a sock. At each of these planets you could buy exciting things like, 'Food', 'Alloys' and 'Textiles'. You would then travel to another planet, not Riedquat though as from memory that was an Anarchy planet and a West African Brown Spitter was sure to take you out, and then sell your 'Food', 'Alloys' and 'Textiles'. But here's the thing, if you were lucky you could sell them for a SMALL PROFIT! And after months of diligent trading you could buy a 'Fuel Scoop' or a 'Large Cargo Bay' or if you were very lazy a 'Docking Computer'.

While supplying the universe with textiles you could also advance your combat ranking from 'Harmless' to 'Elite'. The first few ranks were easy peasy, all you had to do was nobble an Oxacan Smallheaded Rattler and boom, you were 'Mostly Harmless' before you knew it. But it got harder. Much harder. The final step from 'Deadly' to 'Elite' took forever. You had to kill something like 20,000 Namib Dwarf Sanders and after every thousand or so this is what happened.

This is a C64 screenshot so no Squeeee!
After playing non-stop for days those three little words were your only reward. Even when you finally became Elite that was all you got. Sometimes, if I played for long enough without sleep the words could look like 'REDRUM ON COMMANDER!', or 'RIGHT ON MARIJUNA!' or 'I LOVE YOU GREG!', but that was the beauty of Elite, it taught you about life. You give up months or years to focus on one objective and when you finally reach it there's absolutely no reward. Nobody gives a shit. Just like life. No cut-screens, no secret revelations, not even a Stephen Hawking voice to congratulate you, and I knew the BBC could do that because the game Citadel started with Stephen Hawking saying, "Citadel! Citadel! Citadel! Citadel! Superior Software presents....Citadel." Not a reward sausage. Just a 'RIGHT ON COMMANDER!' I've heard tragic tales of players who became Elite and went on playing for years before they checked their status to realise they were Elite.

And guess what?
Squeeeeee!
It is happening again.

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