#17: Nebulus (Hewson, Amiga, 1988)

Playing through the history of games in chronological order helps to bring home the changes that happen, and the first impression of Nebulus is of astonishing alien beauty. Design-wise it realistically loses out to several games we’ve already encountered, but its searing saturated sunsets, the shimmering reflections of mountains in the water its towers rise up from, are something else. Games have been colourful before, but the new sharpness and scale provided by greater processing power really makes a difference. The results are also weirdly familiar. I hadn’t even heard of Nebulus, but while ‘8-bit’ is a common retro shorthand, this is where we first see the technological period and bright aesthetic that’s become emblematic of much games nostalgia.