Zarch Archimedes David Braben 1987

Zarch Archimedes 1987

David Braben's Zarch was so far ahead of its time that it is not even funny. The first computer game to feature solid-filled real-time 3D graphics with light-sourcing and shadow-casting, Zarch on the Acorn Archimedes is quite simply one of the greatest computer games ever coded.

As the first commercially-released Archimedes game, Zarch single-handedly conferred Legendary Status on the Archimedes as a state of the art computer-game machine. And to this day that legend lives on even though the Archimedes itself never took off.

Zarch is a Gravitar-like that employs a real-time 3D rendering engine. Zarch objects are flat-shaded, light-sourced and cast shadows.

Zarch also features patchwork undulating terrain and particle effects as well as inertia and gravity -- in 1987. Zarch displays in 256-color Mode 13.

Mouse-control of the Lander aka Hoverplane is conducted via thrust, fire, pitch and yaw. In addition, the craft employs shield energy, a fuel supply and a long-range scanner.

The mouse-control is sensitive and takes some getting used to: Zarch will filter casual gamers in one millisecond flat, which is a world record and just more proof of Zarch's greatness.

Note that Braben also coded Elite and Frontier: Elite 2, which are two more of the greatest computer games of all-time. Thus, David Braben is immortalized in the Pantheon of computer and video game visionaries.

Zarch Ports

Released in 1988, the Amiga and Atari ST ports of Zarch were renamed to Virus.

Virus was also ported to the IBM PC in 1988:

 

Conqueror Archimedes 1988 (Zarch Engine)

Zarch was followed up by Superior Software's Conqueror of 1988 for the Archimedes, which was designed by Jonathan Griffiths, David Braben and Chris Sawyer. Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS versions would follow in 1990.

When it came out several months into the Archimedes' life-cycle, Conqueror was only the third commercial Archimedes game-release.

Employing the Zarch engine for ground-based armored warfare, Conqueror features 12 different tanks each with 6 player-interpretable stats, such as armor, armor penetration and movement speed. Players control one tank in Arcade mode, a tank platoon in Attrition mode and utilize combined-arms tactics in strategy mode (calling in artillery and air support).

Binary Asylum's Zeewolf of 1994-95 was heavily influenced by Virus. Indeed, the influence of Zarch / Virus on computer and video gaming is incalculable.

cf.:

• History of Shoot 'em ups
• History of Computer Games 1976-2024