I’m fascinated by “Frontier: Elite II”, a space game from 1993 featuring:

- 3D graphics.
- Flight and space physics (lightweight, but still).
- Factions, trade and combat.
- Ship customization.

All that implemented originally in 250000 lines of 68000 assembly, with the whole game fitting in a single double density disk.

Seriously, if you have an emulator and some time to spare, spin it up and give it a try.

https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php?id=1782

@slp I spent *so much time* playing that game as a kid

@slp the original Elite was similarly impressive. A game universe with eight galaxies containing over 2000 stars that you could visit, each with its own name, culture, economy, crime level / laws and various other parameters. 3D graphics including space combat and it all ran on a machine with only 32KiB of RAM and fit on a single 5.25" floppy or audio cassette

@slp plus, they really went out of their way to build the sense of immersion. Copies of Elite shipped with a novella set in the in-game universe and a manual that was also written from an in-game perspective (including this picture, which I love - that's a BBC Micro on the console)

@slp @jmtd I must have played this for hundreds of hours.

@jmtd @slp I was an alpha backer of ED and I had high hopes for it as a game I could play for a long time. My interest in it faded out just because there was no underlying narrative, it was a very sterile universe.