Tremulous

Tremulous
Tremulous Screenshot Tremulous Screenshot
Developer(s)	Tim Angus and contributors
Engine	GPL Quake 3 engine
Platform(s)	FreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS X & Windows
Release	March 31, 2006
Genre(s)	First-person shooter Real-time strategy
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Tremulous is a free software/open source freeware game built upon the ioquake3 code base that blends a team-based FPS with elements of a RTS. Game play is similar to the Quake II mod Gloom (the source of inspiration for Tremulous) and the Half-Life mod Natural Selection. The game code is licensed under the GNU General Public License, with a few exceptions under other compatible free software licences. The game media is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License. The textures used to be for non-commercial and no-derivative use. The latest code removed the texture restrictions.

Development

Tremulous's development was started in early 2000 as a Quake III Arena modification inspired by the popular Quake 2 modification Gloom. Version 1.0.0 was released on August 11th 2005. Due to its long development period, it wasn't initially hugely popular.

Following the release of the Quake III engine source code under the GPL on August 19th 2005, the developers decided to rework Tremulous into a stand alone, free/open source game. This version, 1.1.0, was released on March 31st, 2006.

Upon release of the new version, the game's community grew tremendously, likely due to the fact it was now completely free of charge. Moreover, multiple websites mentioned or reviewed the game which further increased Tremulous's publicity and its number of players.

Tremulous came first in a "Best free game based on GPL Quake source?" poll on the PlanetQuake website.

Gameplay

Tremulous is a first-person shooter featuring two opposing and heterogeneous teams (aliens versus humans) with some elements of RTS (i.e. base building).

Players must build and protect a base which is essential for their survival. The base is used primarily to allow them to respawn and as a secure location to heal. Builders access a build menu by pressing the primary fire button, they then select the building they wish to construct. The desired structure then appears as a see-through, colored version of itself which slides along the ground in front of the builder to alow placement. When the building is green, it can be built, red means it cannon be built, either because of obstruction, or because it is to far from the overmind or reactor. All human buildings are constructed perpendicular to the ground, but some alien buildings can be built on the ceiling or even on the walls. Each building takes up a certain number of build points available to each team. The total build points available is determined by server settings and puts limits on how large the bases can become. Some evers exist which have infinite build points, this changes gameplay dramatically. In addition, most games enter "sudden death" mode (sd) ten to fifteen minutes before the draw/tie time limit. This is a period when all build points are taken away, effectivly disabling the ability to build all buildings except the overmind/reactor and some server-specific strucures.

The teams do not have access to all possible upgrades at the beginning of the game. Each team must accrue a number of kills in order to advance to the next developmental stage, of which there are three (refered to as S1, S2, and S3 in game). The point at which a stage change occurs varies dynamically depending on the number of players on each team and each teams stage is independant of the other's. Each new stage brings more upgrades for the humans or more classes for the aliens. Both teams acquire new buildings at each new stage. In addition to requiring a certain stage, each human item or alien class must be purchased using currency earned in game. Players earn currency by killing enemies; the amount of points earned is based on how much of the damage done to the enemy was done by each player (for example, if a player hurt an enemy down to very low health, and then the enemy was killed by another player, he would stil recieve a large amount of currency).

A match ends when all players of a team have been killed and all of their respawn buildings have been destroyed.

The two sides have different strengths and weaknesses:

• Humans use various weapons, armors and other high-tech equipment (such as the jet pack) as a means to upgrade their combat abilities. They are suited for ranged fighting and need a strong, defensible base in order to survive. They can save up to 2000 "credits" for purchasing upgrades, which range from 100 to 600 credits in price.

• Aliens evolve into a new form in order to upgrade their abilities. most are melee only and all have the ability to regenerate hit points over time. This allows them to function largely independent of their base, which is often weaker than human base and is usually spread out as a defense mechanism. Many alien classes also have a secondary ability in addition to their primary bite or claw attack, thse include the ability to leap long distances to deliver a devistating attack and the ability to create a short ranged, sustained lightingbolt. Aliens can earn a maximum of 9 "evo" points to increase their class; each successive class usually costs 1 evo.

Modifications

The release of the game as free/open source software allowed programmers to easily modify the game and game engine. A growing number of players are releasing patches/modifications for the game in order to remove bugs, add features to the game or modify the game play itself. For example, patches are available which compensate for lag, whereas the "TremX" mod by community member vcxzet changes some of the weapons and adds alien classes to the game, and the "Balance Mod" by Tremulous player Risujin attempts to "balance" the game play by eliminating his perceived flaws in the game design.

One extremely notable example is the work of Tony J. White (tjw), a key developer of the ETPub mod for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. His mod for Tremulous removed some bugs, and added many commands to help server admins. His mod is so well known and useful that it is now considered by the community as mandatory for servers admins. Tjw is also the developer of the unofficial Mac version of the game.

See also

• List of free first-person shooters
• Quake III engine

External links

• Tremulous Official website and download
• Tremwiki.com. Strategy & reference wiki.
• Tremulous League Official Tremulous Clan League