Dbug

An average picture that you save on your phone or PC has a size of around 800 kilobytes. It doesn't do anything, it's just a static image. Now take a game like Elite which had a size of 22 kilobytes on the BBC Micro, or 82 kilobytes on the C64 - and now think about what Braben and Bell turned those 22 kilobytes (or 82 kilobytes) into. A universe with eight galaxies, each containing 256 star systems (for a total of 2,048 planets/systems). Each system also featured unique details: government type, economy, technology level, population, commodity prices, and even descriptive text (e.g., a planet known for "carnivorous arts graduates" or similar quirky combinations). If you still need a bit more help to contextualize that, try this: Elite was smaller than many modern text files or desktop icons, yet it contained (and let you freely explore!) a multi-galaxy-spanning universe that felt vast and limitless. By the way - for thos who will argue "but the universe and stars were created randomly, so that's easy" - I think you wil find that the word is procedurally (with structure), which is not random... and anything but easy. Oh, and by the way, the game also rendered 3D wireframe ships, stations, and planets in real time on processors with 2 MHz. Impressed yet? This is no slight on today's game designers. They work with what they have, and that's okay. But when you think about the worlds that some programmers created with the tools they were given, it sometimes breaks my brain trying to understand how they did it. Elite is a true masterpiece on so many levels. I played the C64 version back in the day, and even 40+ years later it still feels like one of the most incredible programming wonders ever.