DEV Community

Cover image for CTRL ALT ELITE --- A homage to 1984 Elite (Pure CSS Game)
Ben Evans
Ben Evans

Posted on

4 1

CTRL ALT ELITE --- A homage to 1984 Elite (Pure CSS Game)

Hello.

For no reason other than a CSS addiction, I am creating a Pure CSS version of a 1984 BBC Micro computer game Elite which inspired a number of subsequent games, like GTA, No Man's Sky, etc.

The original game squeezed into the 32k memory of a BBC. My Compiled CSS is about 12k so far so I don't have much left to recreate the entire universe like the original (not that I am going to).

https://codepen.io/ivorjetski/pen/MNPqex

I have used the checkbox accesskey attribute to make some of the original keys work but you need to hold down Alt, hence the name.

If anyone has any ideas of how I can make it better, please let me know...

  1. Should I stick to authentically recreating the original graphics where possible or bring it a bit more up-to-date in a stylish retro way?
  2. I'm probably going to put the keyboard controls instructions in the page rather than in the javascript box comments.
  3. Is the actual 3D laser a step too far? As in it uses to much GPU.

Oh yeah and it only works on Chrome at the moment.

Please let me know what you think.

Many thanks,

Ben.

Image of Timescale

🚀 pgai Vectorizer: SQLAlchemy and LiteLLM Make Vector Search Simple

We built pgai Vectorizer to simplify embedding management for AI applications—without needing a separate database or complex infrastructure. Since launch, developers have created over 3,000 vectorizers on Timescale Cloud, with many more self-hosted.

Read more →

Top comments (2)

Collapse
 
frossard profile image
Anderson Frossard •

Hi. That is pretty impressive.
I had this game on my MSX 1.0 and your game look pretty much like the original one.
That game was a blast. Travelling between planets and solar systems was fantastic.

Collapse
 
gohan_b82aa4c1be2122176cb profile image
Gohan •

Pearson GTA Limo is a premier luxury Baysville Airport Limo transportation company known for providing amazing limousine experiences throughout the Greater Toronto Area, Niagara Wine Region, Buffalo, USA, and beyond.

Billboard image

The Next Generation Developer Platform

Coherence is the first Platform-as-a-Service you can control. Unlike "black-box" platforms that are opinionated about the infra you can deploy, Coherence is powered by CNC, the open-source IaC framework, which offers limitless customization.

Learn more