Starship Command

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Starship Command
Developer(s)	Acornsoft
Publisher(s)	Acornsoft
Designer(s)	Peter Irvin
Release date(s)	1983
Genre(s)	Arcade game
Mode(s)	Single player
Platform(s)	BBC Micro, Acorn Electron
Input	Keyboard, Joystick

Acornsoft's Starship Command is a computer game released in 1983 for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. It was available on cassette and disk as well as on ROM cartridge for the Acorn Electron Plus 1 expansion module.

The player assumes the role of captain of a battle starship, charged with defending the frontiers of space from hostile alien ships, which come in two sizes — large and small. In later commands some have cloaking devices which makes them invisible except when they are firing or receiving damage. Damage is inflicted on ships when they are shot or rammed by other ships.

Uniquely for the time, the player vessel remains locked in the centre of the screen and the world rotates and moves around it. The ship has both long range scanners and shields but may only use one at a time. By default the game will automatically switch between them based on the proximity of enemy vessels but the player can optionally take full control.

Unusually, the player is never expected to return their ship from the frontiers. Each individual voyage is a separate command, and lasts either until the player's vessel is destroyed or until they use an escape capsule. If the escape capsule is successfully launched, which means firing it so that it doesn't collide with any enemy ships, and the player is judged by Star-Fleet to have killed enough enemies during his command then he is given a new commission and a new and visually different ship. The number of points required to reach the next levels is not fixed. Sometimes a score of 60 will suffice and sometimes a score of 80 will not be enough to guarantee automatic promotion to the next level, assuming the escape capsule was jettisoned safely. Strangely more points were awarded when an escape capsule collided with and destroyed an enemy ship as opposed to being shot or colliding with the starship.

Later commands take place in faster environments and with greater numbers of enemy.

[edit] Reviews

Although none of the Acorn magazines were in the habit of giving review scores at the time, the game received generally very favourable reviews. Peter Gray, writing in the October 1983 edition of Electron User, concluded that:

The game seems to have everything. The graphics are superb, the instructions thorough and, once you get used to the way your ship stays still while the aliens move, the whole thing is enthralling.