Editing Spasim (section)

==Development==
[[Image:Platovterm1981.jpg|thumb|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 system)|PLATO]] computer network, which by the 1970s supported several thousand [[graphical terminal]]s distributed worldwide, running processes on nearly a dozen different networked [[mainframe computer]]s.<ref name="GS"/> 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 (PLATO)|Empire]]'' (1973), and Charles Miller, who later made ''[[Moria (PLATO)|Moria]]'' (1975). Bowery was inspired by the multiplayer and graphical nature of ''Empire'', a space action game, to create something in the same vein.<ref name="Bowery"/> 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]]''.<ref name="GGG"/><ref name="Bowery"/>

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 [[win-win game|positive sum games]], or [[cooperative game theory|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.<ref name="Bowery"/><ref name="HODG"/> 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.<ref name="Bowery"/> The second version of ''Spasim'' was developed over the course of three days, and the pair released it in July 1974.<ref name="Bowery"/><ref name="HODG"/> 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.<ref name="Video"/>