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Spasim
Spasim
Spasim
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Spasim
DeveloperJim Bowery
PlatformMainframe computer (PLATO)
ReleaseMarch 1974
GenreSpace flight simulation
ModeMultiplayer

Spasim is a 32-player 3D networked space flight simulation game and first-person space shooter[1] developed by Jim Bowery for the PLATO computer network and released in March 1974. The game features four teams of eight players, each controlling a planetary system, where each player controls a spaceship in 3D space in first-person view. Two versions of the game were released: in the first, gameplay is limited to flight and space combat, and in the second systems of resource management and strategy were added as players cooperate or compete to reach a distant planet with extensive resources while managing their own systems to prevent destructive revolts. Although Maze is believed to be the earliest 3D game and first-person shooter as it had shooting and multiplayer by fall 1973, Spasim has previously been considered along with it to be one of the "joint ancestors" of the first-person shooter genre, due to earlier uncertainty over Maze's development timeline.

The game was developed in 1974 at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign; Bowery was assisted in the second version by fellow student Frank Canzolino. Bowery encountered the PLATO system of thousands of graphics terminals remotely connected to a set of mainframe computers that January while assisting a computer art class. He was inspired to create the original game by the multiplayer PLATO action game Empire, and the second version by the concept of positive sum games. Spasim was one of the first 3D first-person video games; at one point, Bowery offered a reward to any person who could offer proof that Spasim was not the first. He also claims that Spasim was the direct initial inspiration for several other PLATO games, including Airace (1974) and Panther (1975).

Gameplay

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Screenshot of gameplay; the screen at the top shows the player's view of a space station, while the bottom half of the screen displayed details about the ship's position and direction.

Spasim is a multiplayer space flight simulation game, in which up to 32 players fly spaceships around 4 planetary systems. Players are grouped into teams of up to 8 players, with 1 team per system; players add their names to the rosters of the four teams, named Aggstroms, Diffractions, Fouriers, and Lasers, each with a different type of spaceship from Star Trek.[2][3] Players control their ships in first person in a 3D environment, with other ships appearing as wireframe models. There is no hidden-line removal implemented on the models, meaning that the models appear see-through and the player can see the wireframe of the "back" of an object as well.[2] The positions of the planets and other players relative to the player update once a second.[4] Players can fire "phasers and torpedoes" to destroy other players' ships. Spasim was intended to include an educational component; players enter instructions to move their spaceships using polar coordinates, e.g. altitude and azimuth, along with acceleration, while their position in space is given in Cartesian coordinates.[5] Players can switch their perspective between their ship, their starting space station, and torpedoes they have launched, in addition to changing the angle and magnification zoom of their camera.[3] All controls are entered via single-key text inputs.[5]

The gameplay of the original version of Spasim is focused on space flight and combat.[5] An updated version of the game was released a few months after the initial release that added strategy and resource management; each team's planet has resources, population levels, and standard of living. Players spend their planet's supply of "anti-entropy" on powering their spaceship or managing their planet. Teams compete or cooperate in order to gain enough resources to reach a far distant planet. Mismanaging a team's resources or over-reliance on combat causes dissatisfaction on the players' planets, and can lead to a "planetary proletariat revolt" which greatly reduces the planet's population and resources.[5][3]

Development

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A PLATO terminal with attached keyboard in 1981

The game was developed by Jim Bowery in early 1974 for the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign's PLATO computer network, which by the 1970s supported several thousand graphical terminals distributed worldwide, running processes on nearly a dozen different networked mainframe computers.[2] Bowery started working on the game, titled "spasim" as a contraction of "space simulation", as a student in January 1974 while assisting professor Leif Brush with the first computer art class at the university. Brush showed Bowery and the class a PLATO graphics terminal in the Lindquist Center on campus, and Bowery, intrigued, signed up for an individual studies course to assist professor Bobby Brown, who ran the lab with this terminal. Bowery learned to program on the computer, helped by other users such as John Daleske, the developer of Empire (1973), and Charles Miller, who later made Moria (1975). Bowery was inspired by the multiplayer and graphical nature of Empire, a space action game, to create something in the same vein.[5] Taking code for displaying a 3D vector graphics perspective previously written by Don Lee and Ron Resch, he designed 3D versions of the ships from Empire, and began adding more features to the game, including weapons inspired by Star Trek.[4][5]

The first version of Spasim, subtitled "An Investigation of Holographic Space", was launched in March 1974. A few months later, Bowery set out to rewrite the game, with the assistance of metallurgy student Frank Canzolino. At first, the pair optimized the 3D graphics of the game, but Bowery, inspired by the concept of positive sum games, or cooperative games, decided to delete the entire game code from the mainframe and start over, building in strategy and resource management elements into the base game instead of adding them on top.[5][6] Bowery designed the new version to penalize over-reliance on combat and incentivize cooperation as part of a philosophical stance on what he believed actual space expansion would require.[5] The second version of Spasim was developed over the course of three days, and the pair released it in July 1974.[5][6] Bowery released occasional updates to the game until he graduated; afterwards it was maintained by Steve Lionel, who added a tutorial on navigating in polar coordinates.[3]

Legacy

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Bowery claims that Spasim had "quite a following" on the PLATO network and that there was "a late night cult" that was devoted to the game, though the emphasis in the second version of strategy over combat cut the playerbase in half.[5] Spasim is one of the first 3D first-person games ever made; at one point Bowery had a standing offer of $500 to any person who could find proof of an earlier such game, or $200 for an earlier game that mathematically modeled population versus resource availability and included space resources.[5] The first is believed to be Maze, a maze game which ran on two connected computers at NASA in 1973 and was expanded to support up to eight players at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that same year.[2][7] Spasim has been considered, along with Maze, to be one of the "joint ancestors" of the first-person shooter genre, due to earlier uncertainty over Maze' development timeline.[1][4][8]

According to Bowery, the initial release of Spasim inspired Silas Warner, one of the developers of Empire, to use Bowery's code in turn to develop the flight simulator game Airace for the PLATO system in 1975, which then lead to first Airfight, another flight simulator, and then the tank driving game Panther later that year.[2][6] Spasim has also been cited as a "spiritual ancestor" of Elite (1984) and the line of space trading games that came from it.[9] In December 2022, Bowery uploaded the source code for Spasim to GitHub, which he had found in an archive.[10]

See also

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References

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Spasim

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia
Spasim is a groundbreaking 3D multiplayer networked video game developed in 1974 by Jim Bowery for the PLATO educational computer system at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It supported up to 32 players divided into four teams of eight, who piloted wireframe spaceships across four planetary systems in real-time space combat and simulation. Written in the TUTOR programming language, the game utilized shared memory blocks for synchronized updates at approximately 10 frames per second during off-peak hours, enabling wide-area networking across PLATO terminals. Inspired by Star Trek and earlier PLATO titles like Empire (1973), Spasim's initial March 1974 release focused on team-based phaser combat in a first-person perspective, with players viewing action from cockpit, space station, or torpedo angles. A July 1974 update introduced strategic elements, including resource gathering, space station construction, and cooperative play to reduce warfare emphasis. The game ran on CDC Cyber 6400 mainframes, leveraging polar coordinates for ship controls and Cartesian for positioning to optimize performance on limited hardware. As the world's first 3D multiplayer online game, Spasim pioneered features like real-time vehicular combat and chat integration via PLATO's Talkomatic system, influencing later simulations such as Airfight, Panther, and flight simulators. Its source code, preserved by Bowery, remains playable through emulators like those at cyber1.org, highlighting PLATO's role in early digital entertainment despite its educational origins.

Development

Conception and Initial Release

Spasim originated in the innovative computing environment of the network at the University of at Urbana-Champaign, where Jim Bowery served as the primary developer. Launched in 1960 as a pioneering computer-based education system, provided access to a CDC Cyber mainframe and specialized plasma-panel terminals, fostering early experiments in interactive software despite its primary focus on instructional tools. Bowery, a student and contributor to the network's programming efforts, began work on Spasim in early 1974, leveraging 's real-time graphics capabilities to create a multiplayer experience unprecedented in scope. Bowery drew inspiration from John Daleske's 1973 PLATO game Empire, a 2D multiplayer space combat simulation involving teams controlling planetary systems, as well as broader concepts of positive-sum games that emphasized cooperative resource dynamics over pure zero-sum conflict. These influences shaped Spasim's foundational design as a basic 3D space flight simulation centered on combat between wireframe spaceships across multiple planetary systems. The game's initial version supported up to 32 players in a networked environment, marking a significant advancement in immersive, first-person perspectives on the era's hardware. Spasim's initial release occurred in March 1974 on the network, introducing players to a rudimentary yet groundbreaking 3D virtual space where combat unfolded in real-time. This launch positioned it as one of the earliest examples of networked 3D gaming, developed amid 's educational mandate that inadvertently enabled creative diversions like multiplayer simulations. In later years, highlighted Spasim's primacy by offering a $500 reward to anyone who could provide verifiable evidence of an earlier 3D first-person multiplayer game, underscoring his assertion that it represented a foundational milestone in the genre. This challenge reflected ongoing debates about the origins of 3D interactive entertainment within academic circles.

Enhancements and Maintenance

In July 1974, Jim Bowery released the second version of Spasim, which introduced significant strategic enhancements beyond the initial combat-focused simulation. This update incorporated mechanics, where players had to cooperate to access scarce extraterrestrial resources, and planetary revolts that required ongoing efforts to stabilize controlled worlds and prevent uprisings. These additions shifted the game's emphasis from direct warfare to economic and diplomatic layers, including a global model tracking and resource utilization. Frank Canzolino, Bowery's apartment mate and a student with expertise in 3D geometry, played a key role in developing this version by optimizing and generalizing the 3D graphics formulas over a three-day rewrite. His contributions enabled the integration of space stations and more complex planetary interactions, supporting the new strategy elements like team-based resource gathering linked to territorial control. Following Bowery's graduation, his involvement in Spasim decreased, with occasional updates released until at least 1983, when a rewrite incorporated further optimizations and design elements. This support ensured the title's continued playability on the system, evolving it into a multifaceted that rewarded economic strategies over pure .

Gameplay

Core Mechanics

Spasim's core mechanics revolve around real-time space flight simulation in a 3D environment, where players pilot wireframe spaceships, engaging in using phaser and weapons to destroy enemy vessels. Players can view the action from various perspectives, including the , anchored to a , or while remotely controlling a . The primary objective is to navigate planetary systems while targeting and eliminating opposing ships, with ship positions and movements updated approximately every second to simulate dynamic 3D space travel. Players maneuver around four planetary systems, using the wireframe display to track relative positions and engage in tactical dogfights. Ship positioning and movement rely on a hybrid coordinate system: polar coordinates for directing and orientation, and Cartesian coordinates for calculating and displaying actual positions in space. This setup allows for precise control over velocity vectors, with updates occurring at a rate of approximately once per second to maintain simulation fidelity on the system's hardware. Combat involves firing phasers for short-range energy blasts or manually guided torpedoes for longer-range attacks, with players able to control torpedoes remotely after launch, each requiring accurate aiming amid the 3D challenges. Controls are executed through simple text-based commands entered on terminals, using single keystrokes for actions such as thrusting (acceleration/deceleration with + and - keys) and turning (altitude and azimuth adjustments via q, w, e, a, d, z, x, c keys). Firing weapons is similarly command-driven, integrated into the flight controls for seamless operation during and . The original version, released in March 1974, emphasizes pure flight simulation and shooting mechanics, focusing on direct ship-to-ship engagements. A second version, introduced in July 1974, expands these by incorporating resource collection mechanics, where players gather materials to construct and supply planetary bases, adding layers of strategic depth to the core flight and combat systems without altering the fundamental controls or coordinate framework.

Multiplayer and Team Dynamics

Spasim supported up to 32 players in a real-time networked multiplayer environment on the system, divided across four planetary systems with a maximum of eight players per system. Players could engage in simultaneous flight and combat, with positions updated approximately every second to enable fluid interactions in the shared 3D space. The game featured four fixed teams—Aggstroms, Diffractions, Fouriers, and Lasers—each assigned to one planetary system, where players joined rosters to participate collaboratively or competitively. In the initial March 1974 release, gameplay emphasized team-based competition through phaser and photon torpedo combat, fostering direct inter-team battles. The July 1974 second version introduced cooperative elements, such as joint resource management to access distant extraterrestrial materials, alongside competitive risks like planetary revolts triggered by neglect or excessive warfare. This structure balanced positive-sum gameplay, where alliances could enhance resource gains and system stability, with inherent conflict from team rivalries and revolt mechanics. Spasim developed a dedicated late-night among PLATO users, with player communities forming around regular sessions that strained network resources due to high engagement.

Technical Implementation

Graphics and Controls

Spasim employed wireframe 3D graphics to render spaceships and planetary environments, prioritizing computational efficiency on the system's limited hardware. These graphics displayed ships and planets as simple line-based models without hidden-line removal, a deliberate simplification that avoided complex occlusion calculations to maintain real-time performance across multiple players. The absence of hidden-line removal resulted in overlapping lines during close encounters, enhancing the raw, unpolished feel of early 3D simulation while keeping rendering demands low on the 6400 mainframe. The game adopted a first-person perspective to simulate space flight, immersing players in a navigable 3D viewed through PLATO's 512x512 plasma panel terminals rendered in orange. This viewpoint rendered the four planetary systems as interconnected 3D spaces, where players piloted ships amid wireframe representations of celestial bodies and opponent vessels, fostering a sense of vast, explorable interstellar domains. Visual updates occurred at frame rates of approximately 1 to 10 FPS, depending on system load and time of day, with rates exceeding 1 FPS even under full load with 32 players. Controls were text-based and adapted to PLATO's input constraints, using single key-presses for intuitive yet rudimentary navigation. Players issued commands like the keys q, w, e, a, d, z, x, c to adjust direction in polar coordinates—computed internally in Cartesian for accuracy—and +/- to modulate speed, enabling fluid maneuvering without dedicated joysticks or mice unavailable on 1970s terminals. This interface emphasized functionality over accessibility, aligning with PLATO's educational origins while accommodating the system's 1200 bps connections and shared memory limitations that could strain updates during peak usage.

Networking and Simulation

Spasim's networking relied on the system's centralized architecture, where the CDC Cyber 6400 mainframe at the University of ' Computer-based Education Research (CERL) handled all simulations for up to 32 players connected via 1200 bps lines to distributed plasma-panel terminals across the campus and beyond. This setup enabled real-time distributed play, with the mainframe processing inputs from terminals and updates, marking an early example of wide-area networked for interactive entertainment. The simulation core ran on the PLATO mainframe, updating player positions approximately every second using coordinate transformations from polar inputs for ship direction to Cartesian coordinates for positioning, facilitated by basic vector . This approach prioritized computational efficiency on the 1 MIPS mainframe, which supported the game's scalability across four planetary systems, each accommodating up to eight players, while managing latency inherent to early 1970s networked systems through infrequent but synchronized updates. The game's code was implemented in PLATO's TUTOR language, a specialized designed for educational applications but adapted here for real-time , featuring shared "common blocks" in core memory to synchronize data across multiple users. In December 2022, developer Jim Bowery archived the source code on , preserving the original TUTOR implementation from an earlier backup.

Legacy and Influence

Impact on Genre Development

Spasim, alongside Maze War developed between 1973 and 1974, is recognized as a joint ancestor of the (FPS) genre, particularly through its introduction of 3D multiplayer combat in a networked environment. While Maze War featured maze-based shooting with up to eight players over , Spasim expanded this to 32 players in a space setting, emphasizing real-time combat and team-based engagements that foreshadowed core FPS mechanics like perspective aiming and opponent tracking. This shared foundation influenced subsequent arcade titles such as Battlezone (1980), which adopted wireframe 3D combat views. Debates persist regarding timeline primacy due to overlapping development periods and limited early documentation; although credits Maze War as the first FPS from 1973, Spasim's 1974 release on the system is often cited in parallel for its scale and innovation in multiplayer 3D shooting. Within the ecosystem, Spasim directly influenced later 3D flight simulations, inspiring developer Warner to create Airace in 1974, a non-combat aerial racer that evolved into the combat-oriented Airfight and eventually contributed to commercial flight simulators like Sublogic's series. Similarly, it prompted John Edo Haefeli's Panther (1975), the first 3D tank simulator, which incorporated Spasim's team deathmatch dynamics and wireframe rendering for vehicular combat. Spasim's emphasis on , planetary exploration, and interstellar trading laid groundwork for the space simulation genre, with its mechanics echoed in titles like (1984), which combined open-world trading, combat, and in a vast galaxy. By pioneering 32-player networked 3D environments on a shared mainframe, Spasim advanced the infrastructure for massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) and online shooters, enabling simultaneous real-time interactions that prefigured modern genres like and through its use of terminal-based synchronization and low-latency updates.

Modern Recognition

In December 2022, original developer Jim Bowery uploaded the source code for Spasim to GitHub, where it remains available for public study and potential emulation using tools like the CDC Cyber emulator at cyber1.org. This release, drawn from personal archives, has facilitated renewed technical analysis of the game's real-time simulation and networking features originally implemented in the TUTOR language for the PLATO system. Spasim receives recognition in gaming histories as the first documented 3D multiplayer , with accounts emphasizing its 32-player capacity and wide-area networking across terminals. For instance, a visual history of first-person shooters describes it as a foundational space combat title that influenced later simulations, while a 2006 analysis credits it with pioneering 3D elements like planetary systems and wireframe environments. Archival footage illustrates its , showcasing the 3D and team-based dynamics in action. The decline of the system in the 1980s, amid the rise of personal , created significant gaps in for games like Spasim, leaving historians reliant on developer recollections and scattered archives for details on its development and exact release timeline. Preservation efforts, including the 2022 source code release, address these voids but highlight ongoing challenges in emulating PLATO's hardware-dependent environment. Among retro gaming enthusiasts, Spasim enjoys cult status for its groundbreaking networking innovations, often discussed in historical overviews of early online play. These conversations underscore its role in prefiguring modern multiplayer genres, though access remains limited without specialized emulators. Uncertainties persist regarding Spasim's exact status as the "first" 3D multiplayer game, with debates centering on its 1974 documentation versus the less precisely dated 1973 Maze War, which recognizes as the inaugural . Recent historical analyses, including those up to 2023, have clarified timelines by cross-referencing logs and developer interviews, positioning Spasim as a key but contested milestone in 3D gaming evolution.
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