Starglider is a 3D video game released in 1986 by Rainbird. It was developed by Argonaut Software, led by programmer Jez San. The game was inspired by Jez San's love of the 1983 Atari coin-op Star Wars.
It was followed in 1988 by a sequel, Starglider 2.
It is a fast-moving, first-person combat flight simulator, rendered with colourful wireframe vector graphics. The game takes over the surface of the occupied planet Novenia, and it is the player's goal to rid the world of the mechanised Egron invaders. To this end the player is equipped with a high-performance AGAV fighter aircraft, which is armed with lasers and television-guided missiles.
Starglider was originally developed by Argonaut Software for the 16-bit Commodore Amiga and Atari ST machines. Rainbird also commissioned Realtime Games to produce 8-bit versions for the Amstrad CPC, Amstrad PCW, and ZX Spectrum (128k, with a cut-down 48k version without sampled speech or special missions), and also for the IBM-compatible PC running in CGA. Solid Images were commissioned to produce versions for the Commodore 64 and Apple IIGS. Most versions included then-novel sampled speech, from Rainbird employee Clare Edgeley.
Starglider 2 is a 3D space simulator/flight simulator video game released in 1988 by Argonaut Games and was the sequel to Starglider. It was released for the Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, Apple Macintosh and ZX Spectrum.
The game uses solid shaded 3D polygonal graphics (only on 16 bit versions), and features open, continuous gameplay without levels or loading screens after the game had started, despite taking place across an entire planetary system. The player can fly through space, enter a planet's atmosphere, explore the surface, and penetrate subterranean tunnels in one seamless movement.
The goal of Starglider 2 is to destroy an enemy space station with a neutron bomb, and the majority of the gameplay consists of collecting parts for the bomb, or fulfilling other prerequisites (e.g. finding the nuclear professor capable of constructing the bomb, or trade goods for the bombs necessary to destroy the shield generators protecting the space station), while fighting off enemy spacecraft, and delivering collected items to depots inside planetary tunnel systems. The various objects needed to complete the game are distributed across the many planets of the solar system, as well as in the intervening space (e.g. asteroids and space pirates), or even in the atmosphere of the gas giant planet.