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The Making of Starglider
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Format: Amiga, Atari ST
Release: 1986
Publisher: Rainbird
Developer: Argonaut

StarGlider was – quite literally – a game that sang. When developer Argonaut released versions for the Amiga and ST in 1986, it astounded the world by producing super-crisp song lyrics (albeit among a composition of slightly questionable worth). This ensured that the game was run on every demonstration machine in Dixons, and generated enough cash and interest to launch the company into the industry’s premier league.

Jez San was just 19 when he started coding the game, and explains how StarGlider actually came out of a failed bid to gain the rights to Star Wars: “I was talking with their lawyers, but negotiations didn’t work out so I deviated from my plan. I created an original 3D game that had storyline, animation, sound samples and many other firsts for a 16bit game – even though nothing gives you a rush as much as ‘using the force’ on that original Star Wars coin-op did for one million bonus points.”



Anyone entering the game world for the first time would recognise the vector style reminiscent of some of San’s favourite games – including Battlezone, Elite and Star Wars – which he quotes as inspirations. Nevertheless, StarGlider developed its own distinctive game universe, which was bonded together by a tremendous narrative line. “I originally had [the player] shooting the tops off towers, just like the Star Wars coin-op,” explains San, “but when I didn’t get the rights I made my game more story-led, more free-roaming, and ultimately a deeper game than the one I originally wanted to do.”

An impressive feature was the game’s attention to detail – it came beautifully packaged with a flight manual, a novella, a functional key guide, and a poster of your AGAV vehicle. The story was based on Novenia, a dying planet ravaged by nuclear fallout and the invasion of the evil Egron empire. The novella was a welcome touch, which managed to establish the game world incredibly well before play. “My agent, Jacqui Lyons, was also a literary agent,” says San. “She represented a very good novelist called James Follett (the brother of Ken Follett), and he penned the novel and helped with the characters. But most of the storyline was inspired by the game.”

Interestingly, the vector style of StarGlider was explained in the novella by the post-apocalyptic state of the planet. Plausible reasons were given for why the planet was dark and how your hero could see through structures and enemies.



Simply flying around the StarGlider world proved a worthwhile experience in itself, and whenever an enemy installation or walker was encountered the temptation to shoot it until it disintegrated into a cloud of pixels was overwhelming. However, subtler techniques needed to be employed to stay alive in the long run. Enemy strategies developed at a fast rate, and as the levels went up their numbers and cunning would increase. Gung-ho blasting would be rejected in favour of a more tactical approach. Chief among these were managing to recharge your energy shields by carefully following the power lines while avoiding the deadly missile launchers.

The main objective of the game – to take out StarGlider 1 – could be incredibly tricky. Once it appeared, a missile would have to be collected from one of your silos. The mothership would then have to be tracked at the perfect speed before you launched your precious rocket. Once fired, your cockpit view would alter to show the camera directly behind the missile (an unusual technique at the time). It would then have to be directed to StarGlider’s weakest spot – its underbelly – to damage the hull. Three direct hits were required.

“The sound chip had no analogue output and certainly no waveform. I opened up the Atari and put a voltmeter across the outputs of the sound chip, and by playing with the volume control of the three sound channels and measuring the voltages of how they interact I built up a lookup table that allowed me to play waveforms on hardware that was in theory not capable of doing it. Hence people were astounded by the lyrics to the StarGlider song that you hear when the game boots up. It sounds simple now, but back then this was a major technical achievement.” Jez San

One of San’s proudest moments during the game’s development was discovering a way to make the ST’s sound chip sing: “The sound chip had no analogue output and certainly no waveform. I opened up the Atari and put a voltmeter across the outputs of the sound chip, and by playing with the volume control of the three sound channels and measuring the voltages of how they interact I built up a lookup table that allowed me to play waveforms on hardware that was in theory not capable of doing it. Hence people were astounded by the lyrics to the StarGlider song that you hear when the game boots up. It sounds simple now, but back then this was a major technical achievement.”

Although San had experience optimising assembler code and had programmed a few titles, such as Skyline Attack on the Commodore 64, there had been nothing quite on the scale of StarGlider. It was a bold game to attempt, but, as with all classic games, its elements came together to deliver a sublime challenge. But even San required help towards the end, and describes the process of bug finding ’80s-style: “My friend Gary Sheinwald was my producer at Rainbird. During the last few days of the games development we took shifts. I stayed up all day and night fixing bugs while he slept next door. When I’d fixed them I’d wake him up, and then I’d go to sleep while he tested the game to look for more bugs. We alternated like this for several days, but it was very effective and got the game out.

“Part of me prefers the old days,” he continues. “When you could program in assembler and make machines do things no one even dreamed of. That was what drove me back then – not the money, but the achievement of writing fast code that did something cool and new.” Indeed, San’s name has appeared in the annual The Times Rich List (he occupied 198th place with a £150 million fortune), and he is a constant reminder of just how the industry has changed and how far the bedroom coders of the ’80s have come. “[Back then] the business and finance community pooh-poohed games companies,” San recalls. “It’s a little different now. Back in the ‘ol’ days’ we used to get a few thousand pounds as an advance. It was the royalties that did the big numbers. I lived quite lean for a couple of years off that advance while finishing StarGlider. Luckily, I still lived with my parents, so expenses were minimal (cinema and pizzas were my outgoings). But when the game came out it flew off the shelves and made a fortune for a young kid like me, and gave me the start I needed.”



But does the StarGlider legacy haunt San? “No, I’m never sick of hearing about it. Argonaut is now a thriving game developer with nearly 150 people. It helped put us on the map – and got me my first big cheques. The royalties from StarGlider allowed us to expand to six people and then to ten. Then we wrote StarGlider 2, Birds Of Prey, and a number of other titles.”

The passion to produce cutting-edge software and push hardware to its limits continued to be very much a part of the Argonaut philosophy til its closure in 2004. You merely need to experience the intensity of the company’s later titles, such as Alien Resurrection, for confirmation of this. But San also looked to harness technology in new ways. Argonaut spun off a hardware division, ARC, which became a separate company, whose customisable and configurable RISC microprocessor changed the world of electronic product design. And all thanks, of course, to those early StarGlider cheques.

This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared in E90. Like what you’ve read? Buy your copy of Edge now for £4.50 and get it delivered to your door (UK and Europe only) at www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/gamesradarshop.

The game also won the Crash! Annual Readers Award in 1986.

For many years, the planet of Novenia was at peace. An automated defence system, called the Sentinels, kept unwelcome callers from outer space at bay. These huge monoliths didn't ask questions - they just blew away anything that they didn't like the look of.

All went well until the Sentinels destroyed a harmless flock of protected interplanetary migratory birds called Stargliders. The Sentinels were immediately reprogrammed not to blow these rather bizarre creatures to bits. Although ecologically sound, this produced a fatal flaw in the Novenian defence system - the ruthless Egrons attacked in ships disguised as Stargliders, thus fooling the defence computers. Once past the Sentinels, there was no stopping them. Novenia relied on the Sentinels and did not maintain any conventional forces. So Novenia was conquered.

Jason and Katra, two Sentinel repair workers, witnessed the death and destruction from the safety of one of Novenia's moons. The two heroes embark on a mission - to destroy the invading aliens singlehanded. All they have at their disposal is an obsolete museum piece of a fighter equipped with lasers and capable of carrying two missiles.

There are more than sixteen different types of Egron craft to destroy and each craft must be dealt with in a slightly different way. The action takes place on the blasted wastes of what was once Novenia, and the antiquated fighter is guided around the dust-laden atmosphere using a co-ordinate system which divides the planet's surface into a grid of 100 units by 100 units.

Two types of sight are available - fixed and floating - and a choice is made before the game starts. Floating sights affect the control of the ship - the AGAV 'follows' the sights. Fixed sights remain in the centre of the screen, and the ship must be manoeuvred until the target appears in target square. An optional centering system may be enabled or disabled at the start of the game - automatic centering can be effected on either the vertical or the horizontal axis, in all directions, or not at all. With fully automatic centering, the fighter returns to flying straight and level when it is left to its own devices.

Two versions of the game have been programmed - the 'standard' 48K version and a much enhanced 128K/+2 version. The enhanced version includes digitised speech (the dulcet tones of one Clare Edgeley), a three-voice title tune and missions that either involve destroying an invader or picking up some extra bolt-on goodies for the fighter. Custom add-ons include super missiles with more fuel, power packs which temporarily dispense with the need to refuel, and a rear view mirror (presumably so that the ancient craft will pass its MOT!) In the enhanced version, particularly unpleasant meanies are encountered on the higher levels, to even out the advantage which the extra equipment gives.

At the start of the game, the airborne ground attack vehicle (AGAV) piloted by Jason and Katra is flying close to a repair depot. These depots are vital to the success of the mission. They rotate slowly, and the entry port on one side must be entered accurately, at low speed. Once inside, damage is repaired and a missile, if available, is attached to the craft. Each depot produces one missile every few minutes, but there is never more than one available each time the AGAV is docked. Before relaunching, the depot computer can be accessed for information on enemy craft.

After re-launching, it is vital to note the co-ordinates of the depot so the AGAV can return when necessary. The only vital commodity not provided by the depots is energy - this has to be collected by using the inductive power lines which criss-cross the planet's surface (they can be recognised by the tall towers that support them). Collecting power requires delicate manoeuvring, and there are usually plenty of meanies scattered around trying to stop the AGAV tanking up.

The AGAV's instrument panel includes horizontal bars that reveal the status of the shields, reserves of power and fuel levels, while two vertical indicators give the height and speed of the craft. The height bar flashes red if the craft is close to the ground and in danger of crashing - hitting the ground does the shields no good at all.

When a missile is fired, the view is supplied by a remote camera on board the missile. Missiles have a limited amount of fuel, fly very fast and have a wide turning circle. Consequently, a missile must be homed in on its target before the fuel runs out - so the target must be fairly close. Generally, there's not usually time to circle round and try again...

It takes three missile hits to destroy an Egron Starglider. As the AGAV can only carry two missiles at once you've got to go and find a depot with a missile ready, dock, and then find the Starglider again, even it you score two direct hits. The reward comes when an Egron Starglider is destroyed - an 'instant replay' of the moment of destruction appears on screen.

After 10,000 points have been scored, the game moves to the next level where the Egron craft take more hits before being destroyed....

Producer: Rainbird
Retail Price: £14.95
Author: Realtime Software


CRITICISM
"Starglider, without doubt, ranks amongst the best games to grace the Spectrum's screen. The whole of the game is excellently done, and its presentation and packaging has been executed in a most professional manner. The loading screen sets the player up for the game-of-the-year on any computer. If you've seen the Atari ST Starglider then you'll be amazed at the Spectrum version because they're so alike! The sound effects are extremely good, and very effective. The number of frames of animation is unbelievable - it's just so smooth and incredibly fast. The options are vast and very useful. There's certainly a pot of gold at the end of the RAINBIRD (Eugh!)."

"Wizz nesaw zoom! ... Zap zap zap kapow! Budda budda budda. This really is my kind of game. It combines a fantastic shoot em up with a bit of brain work (but not as much as Starstrike II). From the word go it is easy to get totally enthralled in the world of Novenia, especially if you read the 64 page novelette (if you can tear yourself away from the game!) I can see myself playing this for weeks. Graphically Starglider is the best vector graphics game to date - my only niggle is that in a game of this quality it's a shame that no one's worked out a way of erasing objects and horizons that appear behind other objects. The sound is a bit disappointing: there are no tunes but the effects are well used. If you are a fan of shoot em ups or vector graphics then this must take pride of place in your software collection. Go and buy it, you won't regret it.

"Wowee!! The last time I saw a game that made me go into the same sort of totally freaked-out ultra-amazed mode was Starstrike II, also by REALTIME. This one is even better, to the extent that I don't think I can find fault with it. The animated vector graphics are just sooo great! The whole thing is destined to become a classic. I think I'd go as far as to say that If this was in the arcades then I'd spend a fair bit of time throwing ten pences into it. If you're the not-so-proud owner of a 48K machine, then I suggest that you go and buy it now. If on the other hand, you've got a Plus 2, then buy this, and spend the rest of your existence playing it (until the follow up, anyway!)"

COMMENTS
Control keys: redefinable: up, down, left, right, accelerate, decelerate, launch missile, fire, pause. (128K version only: launch super missile)
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Use of colour: helpful
Graphics: incredible speed and animation
Sound: good effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: wraparound play area
General rating: It's hard to imagine a better shoot em up

Use of computer 96%
Graphics 95%
Playability 95%
Getting started 94%
Addictive qualities 96%
Value for money 92%
Overall 95%

The 128K version represents quite an enhancement on the 48K game. It deserves a separate critical comment and a revised set of ratings.

"Starglider on the 128K is far superior to the 48K version