About
About the game
"A Tron clone in 3D."
This has been the tagline of Armagetron, since, well, a very long time, and is probably the
shortest and most accurate description possible. Tron was an arcade game based on the movie
of the same name, release by Disney in 1982. The original game consisted of 4 sub-games, the
only one of concern is the 'Light Cycles' one, in which the player uses a left/right
joystick to control a 'Light Cycle' which leaves a wall behind it wherever the cycle it goes, turning
only at 90 degree angles. The player must then get the AI to crash into their wall while avoiding
hitting the AI's own wall themselves. Those were the humble beginnings of Armagetron Advanced's
game play, which has now blossomed into 16 player mayhem, with highly advanced AI, network
game play, and of course all in a 3D environment.
What's advanced?
Armagetron Advanced is the continuation of Manual Moos', alias, z-man's original game, Armagetron. The project was officially registered June 2, 2004, but had it's foundings a month or two earlier than that, amid growing discontentment with several minor, fixable bugs. Tank Program started work on fixing some of them, and a little knwon special release, version 0.2.6.0-TP, was made public. While it was never really sucessful, the fact that builds could be made for Windows, and the presence of qualified C++ programmers, spurred us onwards to creating the SourceForge project, and releasing 0.2.7.0. When almost all hope of ever seeing z-man again was lost, he miraculously returned to the Armagetron scene, and has been with us since. We're now the official continuation of Armagetron, and things are rolling smoothely.
Development!
Development continues in many directions. The (hopefully) final stable 0.2.8.x release is now in beta testing. This release will include the new authentication system. Security releases will be the only updates. This is to make way for new features that we've been working on the last few years, including new and improved zones (different shapes!) and the new sound system. Fancy music in game anyone?
A few more obscure things are going on as well. A new network layer is being implemented that will allow for new types of game play to be compatibile with old clients in the future. On the visual side, The particle system, a new implementation of sparks is hanging in there. The HUD system has also been reworked, allowing new customizable guages and elements in locations. Mini-maps anyone? (They're a real edge.) Finally, something of a relief to the visuall impaired, a new font system has been added. Future version of Armagetron will support true type fonts. You won't loose the old school feel as our own custom font has been remastered, but you'll be able to choose Arial, Verdana, or even Calibri if you really like Office 2007.
But it still gets even better. Even more un-official work is going on, playing around with "Styball," the third dimension, and whatever else any one of us can think up!
Authours & Contributors
Everyone listed on the Contacts page, plus the following, in no particular order.
Others
"marrow" (Alex E. Kelly)
"subby"
Ben Hines
Fabrice Holbe
Tomas Birraux
Christian Reitwiessner
Edd Keefe
David McAllister
Aladdin Enterprises
ID Software
Other Stuff
Armagetron Advanced is Open Source Software, free, and is released under the GPL. It is registered with LaunchPad and SourceForge. Located here and here respectively.
