If you were to ask home-computer gamers of the 80's what the first game that comes to their minds would be when developer Argonaut is mentioned, you can bet "Starglider" will be the answer. If, on the other hand, the same question is formulated to a person who grew up with Nintendo consoles, the answer would have to be "Starfox".
While the history behind these two influential games has long since abandoned the seclusion of old game magazine pages (there's this series of tubes called "the internets", I've been told) and is nowadays common knowledge to old-school gamers, the motivation behind this article comes from the many ommited details, trivia and above all the neglection of a certain extremely-obscure but groundbreaking GameBoy title that had a very important role in the events leading to the first Super FX game project. So let's start from the beginning.

European cover - Commodore 64

Note that even though Andrew Glaister's name is also credited on the cover, it is believed he didn't contribute any code to the game.

Although known by many names throughout its history, the company was founded in 1982 as "Argonaut Software" (a play on "J. San" and the classic greek-mythology movie "Jason and the Argonauts") by then 16-year-old hacker Jeremy "Jez" San as a business front to sell his security-consultant services to big corporations. Jez was a smart British teenager who by the age of 13 had taught himself assembly language (a difficult language for programming computers that unlike more popular ones isn't portable, but specific to a particular CPU arquitecture) on many chipsets, and possessed an overall sustancial amount of computer-related knowledge he often used to pin-point and fix security holes in commercial computer systems.

European cover - Atari ST

Around 1984 Jez and his friend Fouad "Foo" Katan developed Argonaut's first game: Commodore 64 horizontal shoot'em-up Skyline Attack. But it wasn't until 1986 when the company caught its first glimpse of fame with Starglider. This first-person 3D shooter was published by Rainbird, presented its three-dimensional world through colorful vector graphics, featured sampled speech for the first time in an Atari ST title, and is rumored to be inspired by 1983's Star Wars arcade coin-op after a deal to port it to home computers between Jez and its developers (Atari) fell through.
Starglider was originally developed for the 16-bit Commodore Amiga and Atari ST computers although many ports were produced for other home computers of the time. It is believed to be the first popular 3D computer game (supposedly selling copies in the hundreds of thousands), helping put Argonaut financially on the map and eventually spawning a sequel in 1988.

It was also in 1988 that a young developer by the name of Dylan Cuthbert joined Argonaut at 16 years of age...

X

Players: 1 About: 3D shooting Courtesy of: Argonaut / Nintendo Back in: 1992 Originally on: GameBoy Also on: N/A

After the Japanese launch of Nintendo's 8-bit portable in 1989 and before it was introduced to the rest of the world, Dylan began playing around with an experimental development kit that Jez had hacked together for his imported GameBoy. Steering clear of the portable's originally intended software library, Dylan pushed the limits of the hardware by developing a demo of a vector/wire-frame-based 3D engine for it. At a later Consumer Electronic Show, Jez promoted this demo by proudly showing it around to many companies, of which none other than Nintendo itself was the most impressed. As Dylan himself puts it,

With only 2 weeks notice, Nintendo flew the teenagers out to Japan to discuss ways to apply their technology to future Nintendo products. This time they presented their 3D engine in front of very impressed Nintendo executives and even Miyamoto himself, who greenlighted Dylan to work under Metroid-series director Yoshio Sakamoto to develop a full version.

Japanese cover

By the time the project was finished in 1992, the game's tentative title of "Lunar Chase" was changed to simply "X"; but in a move that obliterated its chances of becoming a worldwide GameBoy classic, Nintendo suddenly decided to scrap the western release even though it had already been announced in their own Nintendo Power magazine. The argument was that, according to Dylan's own words, X's genre "didn't fit the puzzle game mold that Nintendo of America wanted". While this statement isn't 100% accurate (after all there were many friendly platformers like Super Mario Land and even "riskier" cross-genre concepts like Gargoyle's Quest), it's still easy to see why Argonaut's title wouldn't fit GameBoy's target audience: its complexity stemmed from more complicated home-computer, simulator-type games.

Battlezone - Arcade

The easiest way to effectively describe X is as a clone of 1980's classic Battlezone by Atari: a first-person shooter with a primitive 3D engine composed of vectors. Note that I used the word "vectors" and not "polygons". Vectors are essentially lines, and 3D objects represented by them are built of what look like wire frames, rendering them see-through instead of the solid, more advanced and processor-intensive polygons.

The game puts the player in the cockpit of the armored tank "VIXIV", whose objective is to defend the newly discovered planet "Tetamus 2" and the valuable power crystals found in it from an invading alien army.
The VIXIV's controls can be very intimidating if your favorite GameBoy games are titles like Tetris and Super Mario Land. After all, they are believed to be one of the reasons for the sudden cancellation of the U.S. release.
An HUD displays basic info such as fuel, timer and health status; but you'll also need to pay attention to an enemy-proximity indicator, compass, radar, missile stock, present speed, and even an altitude gauge. Yes, the VIXIV can also fly when launched off a ramp at full speed. But don't worry, a training mission goes over the HUD and all of the tank's basic controls and special abilities. The learning curve is gradual enough to be accessible even if you can't read Japanese.
The tank's maneuvering is surprisingly solid for the limited hardware even though the frame rate drops dramatically when veering quickly or turning 180 degrees. Its main weapons are an unlimited twin laser and counted missiles; but secondary ones such as a lock-on feature, bombs, a jet pack, and high-power "High-Ex" missiles are equipable inside certain buildings.

Been there, done that. Sort of.
Faceball 2000 - GameBoy
Although Dylan's early demo of X dates back to sometime around 1990 and its finished, retail version boasted true 3D movement; Xanth Software F/X's port of its innovative Atari ST title MIDI-Maze is actually the GameBoy's first 3D title, released in 1991 under the name of Faceball 2000. This impressive yet obscure long-forgotten first-person-shooter featured 2D movement in a "solid", non-vectorized 3D environment. It is also the only game on the system supporting up to 16 simultaneous players, and was programmed by Robert Champagne with some help of renowned Russian developer Alexey Pajitnov of Tetris fame.

A total of 10 missions / levels (Mission 0 is a pilot-training mission that cannot be skipped) are set on the same map throughout the whole game, but the surprisingly sheer variety of objectives (rescuing hostages, neutralizing time bombs, chasing Terminator-like robots, infiltrating enemy tunnels, and conboying dangerous cargo among others) do a great job of keeping the player interested in a game whose high technical standards could have easily become an excuse to overshadow fun.
The map is divided into 8 (2 columns by 4 rows) rectangular areas. A series of underground tunnels in the shape of an X runs underneath it, serving as a quick way to get around avoiding surface dangers as long as you can steer the VIXIV safely through these very impressive pre-Starfox 3D passages.
Other constructions found on the map include 8 defense stations (useful to check mission status, manage weapons, and replenish equipment), the 4 tunnel gates and its junction (the latter also used to replenish fuel or weapons), and a nuclear silo that plays important roles on certain missions.
Enemies include various tanks, spider mechs, fighter planes and missile launchers; but also insect-like creatures, cocoons, larvae and other alien threats that bring the foe total up to an impressive 25+. Most of these tend to drop replenishing items when destroyed, keeping the game's difficulty moderated.

X - GameBoy	Starfox - SNES
Starglider's legacy shows in X, which in turn shares many ideas with Nintendo's Starfox. Tunnel areas are one of the most prominent on these last two.

It's easy to see Starglider's influence in X's graphics, which in turn also shared a lot with Starfox's design (the tunnel sections, for example, look very much alike). Despite the latter using polygons, some 3D techniques and graphic elements remain very consistent throughout the 3 titles and are easily recognized. The only real downside is the at-times jerky frame rate, but it's a minor inconvenience. Besides, holding this against the most technically advanced title on the old monochrome portable is just being too picky.
In trying to bring X closer to the GameBoy's established audience, Nintendo's direct involvement in its design gave it a noticeable warmer, charming touch to its presentation. A good move that avoids the usual colder, more technical feel of simulator-type games often found in home computers.

X's Japanese commercial

Kazumi Totaka (Mario Paint, Animal Crossing, Luigi's Mansion, etc.) was assigned to compose the soundtrack, which clearly reflects Nintendo's quality standards despite it being his very first effort for the company. A wide variety of dramatic, upbeat, and futuristic tunes fit each of the game's different moments perfectly, with the very catchy underground-tunnel theme even receiving a remix in the Wii's title Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Totaka's Song
As Kazumi's first project with Nintendo, X includes the first known instance of the composer's infamous Totaka's Song (a very simple, short 19-note melody composed by him and known to be hidden in most of the games he worked on). You can listen to it on Mission 4 after rescuing one of the imposter scientists. Just wait a while for it to start playing on the "Thank you..." screen .
		Totaka's Song

The lack of a saving feature or even primitive passwords is the only real discouragement from beating an otherwise very solid game, specially when there's just no way to skip the annoying training mission once you have learned the tank's controls. Still, continue opportunities abound, and the overall balance between repair items, continue points, and X's difficulty level ends up being forgiving enough to even keep the GameBoy's original audience interested. More than just fancy programming, and very recommendable.

Contrary to popular belief, X sold quite good in Japan. In an old interview at the now defunct www.emulatorium.com, Dylan comments,

Yet Argonaut's biggest success was still Starglider. To at least match it, they would soon need more than advanced software techniques...