2 HN users recommended this demo2 months2016–2020score 2
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN commenters recall it as a mind-blowing early 3D game that showed what the Archimedes hardware could do.
Gameplay footage of Zarch, the 1987 3D Defender-like game by David Braben for the Acorn Archimedes. It shows the 256-colour 3D landscape where you stop landers spreading a virus.
“It's an awesome 3D game from 1987 (with truly awful sound).” (HN, 2020)
Got to add Zarch to the list, we had one in the 'computer lab' surrounded by BBC micro's, I only touched on a little of it's potential, but this game was mind blowing! [this video]
Gameplay of Zarch, a groundbreaking 3D game on the Archimedes
Check out Zarch on the Acorn Archimedes. [this video] It's an awesome 3D game from 1987 (with truly awful sound). That was made 6 years before Second Reality, on a RISC-based computer. It's incredible.
1987 3D game on RISC hardware, years ahead of its time
The Archimedes' performance was astonishing at the time. It was amazing to see Zarch [1] in 1987, when games were mainly sprites [2] (with important exceptions like Elite). [1] [this video] [2] [link]
One of the benefits of growing up in the UK around that time (late 80's) is that there was a chance your school had an Acorn Archimedes or two and you could have you mind blown with Zarch: [this video]
> they weren't particularly fast I remember them being amazingly fast. I was comparing them to Amigas in 1987 though. The Motorola 68000 in the Amiga 500 was less than 1.0 dhrystone MIPS, while the Archemedes A3000 was about 4.0. For reference, the machines cost about £499 and £599 respectively in 1987. As a result the frame rate, poly count and screen size in Zarch on the Archemedes was higher than Starglider II on the Amiga :-). Look [this video] , [link]
Shows Zarch's 3D frame rate and polygon count on Archimedes
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed
5 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Citations, criticism and jokes