http://antraxx.com
ANTRAXX
BRINGING BACK THE MECH SHOOTER
INTRODUCTION
Antraxx is a multiplayer isometric, arcade-style, mech battle shooter.
Mixing classic pixel art with a highly stylized modern twist using dynamic lighting, shadows, physics, positional audio and more.
The goal is to create a next-generation 2D isometric game in terms of gameplay, graphical gimmicks, audio and immersion while still keeping true to games that inspired us to become game developers. It aims to be an immersive, limitless, fun and a creative multiplayer game and is currently in development for web and tablet devices.
As a user you will be able to create maps using the in-game editor with a high level of creative freedom. It is based on the sandbox concept. The maps created by you or by other people are all playable. You can run the maps in multiple game modes, such as free for all, team deathmatch, king of the hill and more.
Alternatively you can choose to socialise in one of our many public areas. Here you can show off your mech, acquire ladies or trade mech parts. Co-ordinate with your team, slander your enemies or socialise all while strutting around in your awesome pixelart mech that you can customize by buying or trading cockpits, weapons, legs and fill your upgrade slots with jetpack boosters to fly over the map and annihilate from above. The sky's your limit.
You can also take advantage of so called wired tiles and entities, allowing for complex contraptions to destroy your enemies or aid your team. Jump onto a button to open a door for your friends, or build traps to snare your enemy. You can potentially create maps with an unlimited size, allowing for one of the most creative games on the web.
GAMEPLAY
In Antraxx you can collect mech parts and weapons to outfit your own individual mech.
The character is fully customisable from legs, left and right arms, to cockpit and shoulder rocket packs. After selecting the desired parts you can even choose colours for each individual part.
In the game itself you can find mech parts laying around from dead mechs in the map, you can purchase them from the in-game store with your experience points or you can trade with players. We are even allowing users to come to a battle agreement with a specific mech part as a reward!
We offer various game-modes and unlimited creativity when it comes to building your own maps. Join in hosted events, public events, giveaways and battles. Charge and fire your lasers for a big impact, fire cluster missiles from the other end of the map or get up close and personal with a heavy machine gun. There are countless ways to achieve peace in the never ending war known as Antraxx.
There are a lot of interesting gameplay mechanics beside the already mentioned sandbox map that allows the creator to force players into teamwork. As for your mech character you are dealing with damage, armor, speed and energy. For instance:
Energy:
Game features as super powerful laser weapons and teleportation require the use of energy. Some use and require more energy than others.
Damage:
You will receive damage when shot. The amount of damage depends on your armor stats and the strength of the opponent's weapon. If parts of your mech body become too damaged they will explode and become malfunction. If a part malfunctions you will not be able to use it anymore. Meaning if one of your guns is destroyed you deal less damage. The same goes for all other parts. If your legs are destroyed you will not be able to walk and if your torso malfunctions you can no longer rotate your upper body.
Speed:
The more you fit on your mech the slower you become. It is also depends on the attributes of your fittings.
We offer players the ability to place so called booster tiles. These tiles randomly spawn boosters that restore full energy, health, activate a shield that will stay active until it breaks by damage and so on.
You play the game to advance, no cash needed. To keep our servers running you can choose to buy points to spend. This is not required. This game is entirely free to play.
TECHNICAL
Antraxx has been recorded four times. Each time because the last engine wasn't scalable enough for what we wanted. We had to rethink from the ground up, wanting this new engine to be reusable, portable, secure, scalable and above all - beautiful.
In order to achieve this we went through revisions of JavaScript - way before canvas and webgl were on the scene - and on to AS3 as well as AS3 using Starling - because of the hardware acceleration - and again back to JavaScript. This time we are using WebGL and the game is actually 3D.
The engine takes in 2D isometric pixel art, converts the necessary components into 3D meshes which allows us to take full advantage of modern game development practices including the much requested dynamic lighting and shadows. It is rendered from an orthographic isometric perspective, the same at which the art itself is drawn.
For those with lower-end devices and those who want to play with a pure pixel look there is an option to enable classic mode. This will disable fancy graphical gimmicks and gives the game a real 90s feel.
VISION
The game has been in development since the summer of 2011. Due to real life, work, relationships, being in education and moving around the development has been on and off. However, all that has settled and we are ready to dedicate some serious time to the project.
Antraxx always felt ahead of its time for us in terms of what we wanted to achieve for our technical ability and the technology available at the time. We have been featured on the TIGSource devlog magazine and their tumblr. We have had great feedback and people wanting to interview us. We're stoked to have this reaction, and plan to get this game out there. The game is developed by Sam Hellawell (code) and Leendert Oomen (graphics).
PRESS & MEDIA
Website
http://antraxx.com
Facebook
http://facebook.com/antraxxgame
Twitter
http://twitter.com/antraxxgame
Instagram
http://instagram.com/antraxxgame
TIGSource devlog
https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=32409
TIGSource devlog magazine
http://venuspatrol.com/2013/04/tigsource-devlog-dom2ds-visual-showcase-of-awesome-new-games-issue-14/
Siliconera Interview
http://www.siliconera.com/2015/08/31/bringing-back-the-isometric-mech-shooter-with-meta4/
Contact:
Leendert Oomen
Founder & lead designer
Sam Hellawell
Co Founder & lead programmer