 I'm the storyteller and my stories must be told. Ah, the BBC Micro. A computer for the posh folk, I dare say. It didn't come cheap, you know, but despite its boxy appearance, the BBC Micro had a killer app that made it worthy of every penny. A game that promised not just the world but the entire universe. And let you do whatever the hell you wanted in it. That game was elite. Sure, by today's standards, the monochrome wireframe graphics might seem a bit primitive, but back then they were downright stunning. And that was just the beginning, my friend. With elite, David Brabham and Ian Bell gave birth to a vision of a computerised future that blew people's minds. And thanks to the BBC Micro's 32K, this impossibly big game was crammed into something quite small. Elite wasn't just any old game, no, sir. It was a universe simulator. It threw out the rulebook and gave players the freedom to be as good or bad as they damn well pleased. And let me tell you, that was a game changer. Elite was the kind of game that made you believe in the potential of technology. It was more than just a game. It was a dream come true. Ah yes, elite on the BBC Micro. A true pioneer in the world of video games. Its use of wireframe graphics to depict spaceships and environments was truly remarkable for the time and helped to establish it as one of the first 3D games ever made. The game's universe, with its vast open-endedness, was a true marvel. Players assumed the role of a space trader and fighter with the freedom to explore different star systems, trade goods and engage in epic space combat with other ships. But it wasn't just the game's sheer scale that captured players' imaginations. Elite was also highly acclaimed for its groundbreaking gameplay, which allowed players to chart their own course through the universe and make their own decisions about how to play the game. And with over 2,000 different planets to explore across 8 galaxies, the possibilities for the time truly felt endless. I think you'll like this. Professor Brian Cox was recently asked in an interview, What is the one fact about the universe that blows your mind? He went on to say, in the visible universe, although he hasn't counted it all yet, roughly there's around 200 trillion galaxies, which is based on surveys of the local universe. And then just to put things into perspective, the Milky Way has 400 billion stars in it. And to make us feel even smaller and more insignificant, it takes light over 100,000 years to reach one side of our galaxy to the other, and there are 2 trillion galaxies that we can see. That's just mind boggling. But get this, just that bit that we can see is a tiny part of what scientists believe is an infinite universe. Now scientists don't actually know that for sure. But when you think of it like that, nobody can picture it. It's impossible to visualize the sheer scale of the universe. And the way I've interpreted the story of David Brabham, the brains behind Elite, is that he had a dream, a dream of whisking players away to another world where they could roam through the vast reaches of space, blow stuff up in epic battles and trade their way to riches. I wish I could have dreamed that big, but that wasn't enough for Brabham, no. He wanted to take it to the next level to make a game that would be the benchmark for all future space exploration games, and boy did he deliver. Now of course, the games combat system was no walk in the park either. Players had to carefully manage their ship's speed, weapons and shields in order to outmaneuver and defeat enemy ships, adding a layer of complexity and challenge to the gameplay. And let's not forget the introduction of the Elite status, a new concept that players could achieve by accumulating a high score based on their trading, combat and exploration activities. Elite was an undeniable commercial success and it went on to be released on many other platforms including the Commodore 64, the Apple II and the IBM PC. Its impact on the development of other space trading and combat games cannot be overstated and its legacy can be seen in later games as well like Wing Commander and Eve Online. But even today Elite lives on in modern form and there was a Kickstarter that was funded called Elite Dangerous released in 2014. So all in all, Elite on the BBC Micro was a groundbreaking game that set new standards for open-world gameplay and had a lasting impact on the video game industry. So what a fantastic story already. Davey Brabham, the visionary game developer, was first introduced to the world of computer programming at a young age when he unwrapped an acorn atom Christmas 1981. Now this humble machine with a modest amount of RAM captured the young Brabham's imagination and he quickly began to explore the possibilities of programming in basic. Now fast forward a bit to his university years at Cambridge where he studied physics it was there that Brabham decided to turn his passion for programming into a career co-founding a software development company called Frontier Developments but it was with his groundbreaking game Elite co-created with Ian Bell that Brabham truly made his mark on the industry. So I know what you're thinking. So how did Davey Brabham team up with Ian Bell to create the seminal video game Elite? So it's quite an interesting one and it goes back to their shared experiences as students at Cambridge University. The story goes Brabham and Bell were both studying at the university in the early 1980s and they were both avid fans of video games. They had mutual interest in creating a new kind of space exploration game that was more sophisticated than anything that existed at the time. So they decided to team up and work on the project together. Brabham had some programming experience having worked on his own game projects in the past while Bell was more focused on the design and the gameplay aspects. Together they worked on Elite for two years solid with Brabham handling most of the technical coding and Bell contributing to the game's overall design and storyline. The results was a game that was truly groundbreaking featuring a vast open world space environment that players could explore and trade in along with a complex combat system and a rich narrative. You could become a space trader, a pirate or a bouncy hunter and go to town on a range of activities from mining asteroids to dogfighting with other ships plus the game's open world design meant that players could venture through the galaxy at their own pace essentially forging their own unique stories and adventures. In a book called The Video Game Guide by Matt Fox Matt went on to say that Brabham and Bell created a living breathing universe filling the vastness of space with countless planets each with the unique characteristics not to mention space stations pirates police asteroids sinister areas of which space thargoid battle cruisers and more all incredibly squeezed into the BBC Micro's 32k of memory. Now also Stuff Magazine they did a top 100 games and Elite on the BBC Micro came number 12 and they said the game that hooked a generation it introduced a 3d world eight entire galaxies actually and convinced us that we'd all be working as spaceship pilots by 2008 which admittedly some of us are they went on to say the creators of Grand Theft Auto site Elite's open 3d world has a key inspiration it is the daddy and the same people who played it as kids back in the day and now probably embroiled. David Brabham has also stated in many interviews that he was generally happy with the original version of Elite on the BBC Micro while there were some limitations due to the computer's hardware he felt that they were able to create a game that was groundbreaking for its time and push the boundaries of what was possible on an 8 bit platform right so when it comes to how many copies the 1984 version of Elite sold in its many variations it's a bit tricky to pin down an exact number but what we do know is he sold a lot and I'm talking well over a million copies making it one of the most successful games of the 1980s so in closing Elite was a game that captured the imagination of players all around the world and set the standard for space exploration game for years to come and that's a pretty impressive achievement if you ask me well we've come to the end I hope you enjoyed this video if you did please like comment subscribe ring that bell and how about giving us a big thanks and one final request share the hell out of it so until next time bye