About ArcCommand

Long ago, in a galaxy that's pretty close, Starship Command was written for the BBC Micro. It was developed by Peter Irvin, and some see it as a 2D forerunner to Elite.

The basic aim of the game was to fly around and shoot the enemy ships that swarmed around you. Each time an emeny was destroyed, your score racked up. Each time you were hit by an enemy bullet, or collided with an enemy, your energy reserves went down. Once you had lost your energy, you were destroyed - end of game. However, you had escape pods (one to the left, and another to the right), and if you successfully escaped, you had the chance to try in a new ship - provided your score had increased during your last command enough to satisfy Starfleet Command. If you weren't able to convince them, you were retired (end of game).

[Original image removed, but Wikipedia image linked]

During my time at school, I played this game a lot, and continued playing it throughout the years using BBC micros or emulators. Although the graphics and sound have become dated (well, there wasn't much of a choice at the time), the actual gameplay itself is still tremendous.

It was 7 years ago that I decided that there ought to be an updated version. My first attempt (called Equinox) was a very loosely based version of the game, with vector graphics, different level styles, credits, ship upgrades and a way to actually complete the game. This was developed for a year, but reached a point where the code was becoming too unmaintainable, so it was stopped.

It was 5 years later that another attempt to create the game was made. This time, it was a much tighter based version, with ray-traced graphics, no credits, no ship upgrades, and no game completion. After mulling a few ideas, and showing the game engine off to a number of people, I decided it was time to actually finish it off.

Towards the end of 2001, the game became more and more complete, with this version officially released at the start of 2002.

Although the game is called ArcCommand (after the Archimedes - the computer that succeeded the BBC micro), Windows and Linux versions have also been created in addition to the Acorn version.

This game is released as freeware meaning you do not have to pay a penny for it. It was enjoyable writing it, as well as playing it, and I would like you to enjoy it as much as I did.