3D POOL

■ DEVELOPER: FIREBIRD ■ YEAR: 1989

All popular platforms had their star programmers who single‑handedly produced games that were unusually original, spectacularly well‑written or just downright remarkable in the technical feats they pulled off. One such BBC Micro coder was ‘Orlando Marshall Pilchard QC’, who later revealed himself as one Nick Pelling. Orlando’s catalogue of BBC releases was small but highly regarded. His first BBC project was Arcadians, commissioned by Acornsoft, but he became best known for his surreal platform game Frak!.

Nick Pelling earned a reputation as a skilled writer of BBC technical demos and game engines, but he later expressed regret that he hadn’t turned more of them into published games. One such demo involved an arrangement of 3D balls animating in patterns, and a colleague’s suggestion that he should turn it into a game prompted the idea of creating a 3D implementation of pool.

Naturally enough, the initial version of 3D Pool was for the BBC (he also produced an Electron version and, later, one for Game Boy Color). It would prove to be his last BBC game and also his first 16-bit one (for Atari ST). Nick also did substantial work on 3D Pool for Acorn’s 32-bit Archimedes. Unfortunately, at around this time British Telecom decided to divest itself of its software publishing arm, Microprose took over and the Archimedes version was never completed. The move also scuppered the expected tie-in with ‘Maltese Joe’ Barbara, who was European pool champion at the time. His name was removed from the game title, packaging and advertising, though oddly enough the game itself retained a loading screen featuring a rendition of the champion player under the title ‘Maltese Joe Barbara’s 3D Pool ’, and his name remained in the game. Perhaps the loss of the official association with Maltese Joe was no bad thing for the game’s long-term reputation, however, given that Joe himself was jailed in 1995 for forging £1.5 million in bank notes!

As for the game itself… it plays pool. As you’d expect from the author of Firetrack, though, it’s technically extremely well-implemented. It’s not fast, as it’s clearly pushing the limits of a 32K BBC Micro, but pool is an unhurried game and the graphics are flicker-free and convincing, even in the BBC’S low-resolution screen mode, and the simulation of the physical interaction of the balls is

convincing. The game features a range of AI players, so you can play against the computer or another person, or even let your machine play against itself. And, unlike any previous game of its type, 3D Pool was notable for presenting a player’s-eye view of the table.

3D Pool may not be the most action-packed of games, and it arrived late enough in the life of the BBC Micro that it’s not a well-remembered release on the platform. But it was a technical triumph at the time, and a fitting final showpiece in Nick Pelling’s BBC programming career. It was also another example of the BBC Micro being instrumental in the creation of something quite seminal.