Tremulous

Tremulous is a free software/open source 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.

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 was a instant hit.

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. .

Tremulous is a free 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, because it is too far from the overmind or reactor, because no build points are left, or for some other reason (such as trying to build a Tesla generator when there is no Defence Computer set up). 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 servers exist which have infinite build points, this changes gameplay dramatically. In addition, most games enter "sudden death" or sd mode ten to fifteen minutes before the draw/tie time limit. This is a period when all build points are taken away, effectively disabling the ability to build all buildings except the overmind/reactor and some server-specific structures.

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 (referred 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 independent 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 still receive a large amount of currency).

A match ends when all players of a team have been killed and all of their respawned 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 at the armory, which range from 70 to 600 credits in price.

• Aliens evolve into a new form in order to upgrade their abilities, most of which only have melee attacks. Not only do all alien forms have the ability to regenerate hit points over time, aliens also can evolve anywhere as long as there is an overmind. 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. In order to hit with their melee attacks, aliens use their mobility, smaller classes having the ability to crawl on walls or jump off walls, larger classes having the ability to pounce or charge. All aliens are at least as fast as a running human. To evolve, aliens earn "evo points" in the same way as humans earn credits. From the wall-crawling Dretch to the charging Tyrant, each successively larger class costs 1 additional evo- with advanced forms costing one additional evo and having slightly more hitpoints and an additional (and possibly ranged) attack.

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. Tony J. White (tjw), a key developer of the ETPub mod for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, released a widely used modification for Tremulous. The mod removes some bugs, and adds many commands for the benefit of server admins. The mod is highly regarded among the server admin community, and some consider it mandatory for running a server. The majority of his modifications are slated to appear in the next official release. Tjw is also the developer of the unofficial Mac version of the game.

Upon release of the standalone 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 ^{[1] [2]} which further increased Tremulous's publicity and its number of players.

Tremulous later came in first in a "Best free game based on GPL Quake source?" poll on the PlanetQuake website.^[3] At the beginning of 2006, Tremulous also took first place in the Mod Database "Mod of the Year" 2006 competition under the category of "Standalone Game of the Year".^[4]

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

• Tremulous Official website and download
• SVN Repository WebSVN View
• tjw's mod Modifications/Administration Interface
• r1 Modifications/Administration Interface (Deprecated)
• Master List of Tremulous Servers