Gibbon Games

Zinc - the first Dreadnought

Uridium by Andrew Braybrook (C64) – game review by Andrew Wright

Andrew Braybrook is my coding hero. He wasn’t afraid to try new things and each game he created was completely different to the last. He was always an innovator and didn’t just follow the pack, and yes I do realise that Uridium was based on a game he saw in an arcade, but what he brought to it was that unique Braybrook magic that made it special.

This was the fastest scrolling game on the C64 (at least while I had one). The objective of the game was to fly along a “Dreadnought” (large spaceship to the uninitiated) and destroy attacking waves of fighters as they came at you from both the left and right of the screen, while at the same time strafing the deck.

Sounds simple right? Wrong! That wasn’t all you had to contend with. Each Dreadnought also had obstacles that needed to be avoided and flying into one meant the loss of a life. As you progressed, these obstacles became more and more common and required greater and greater flying skill to avoid.

Each Dreadnought was defeated once you got the command to “land now.” This required you to find the landing strip – land and play a sub game that set about a chain reaction that then destroyed the ship. Again, Braybrook’s attention to detail meant that the ship actually vaporised as you flew over it one last time – an absolute classic.

David adds:

If Uridium did nothing else, it demonstrated what a brilliant programmer Andrew Braybrook was. It was simply a technical masterpiece. At the time, nothing compared to it on the c64. It was very fast and it was very smooth.

Interestingly, it was never one of my favourite games. Which makes me wonder why I spent almost 3 years cloning it… It was always far, far too hard for my tastes. The only real winning strategy was to memorise every deck, until you reached a point where all you had to worry about were the incoming alien waves – deck dodging had to be near automatic. If it had been a touch easier it would have completely won me, since it had absolutely everything else going for it.

The much-anticipated Amiga version sadly disappointed. It was slick, yes, but the deck design was so complex that you had trouble distinguishing ship from deck, and friend from foe. Such a great pity…

Andrew's 3dsmax mockup

I just had to include this image, 3dsmax’d by Andrew (click to enlarge). Andrew actually created a full movie of this deck (Zinc) at the time – complete with the loveliest of shadow effects. The video below doesn’t really do it justice. Every time I see this video I think of what might have been/still could be and fight the urge to fire up a modern 3d engine and have another go at a Uridium clone. Best I don’t look at it too much!