\author{Jason Bishop \and Jan Wassenberg}

Overview/Intro

Wildfire Games (WFG) is in the process of developing a freeware game. The name of this project is 0 A.D. (zero ey-dee"), a historically based Real Time Strategy (RTS) game focusing on the years 500 B.C. to 0 A.D. In short, it is a war/economy strategy game that allows you to recreate or rewrite the ancient history of western civilizations.

0 A.D. has been in development for five years. The team members are largely students and game development hobbyists. The game has always been intended to be released as freeware and available to all, and none of the participants have or will be compensated financially for the contributions they have made. The reward for us is the experience we have gained and the pleasure of creating a game RTS enthusiasts like us have been waiting for.

0 A.D. is built on WFG's Pyrogenesis game engine. With its modular design and ease of modification, the game itself could be transformed into something entirely different than the development that WFG has done so far. Whatever you can imagine: pirates, ninjas, and space aliens are always a popular choice. WFG actually has another development project called The Last Alliance which is a Lord of the Rings-based modification of Pyrogenesis that is a RTS/RPG hybrid.

Wildfire Games is now creating a new branch of development. As students ourselves we are aware that working on interesting projects requires laying untold amounts of foundation code, which can be a daunting task. Therefore WFG would like to offer the source code of our game to professors and students of universities all around the globe as a means of enabling projects for computer labs, coursework, projects, or theses.

Pyrogenesis Features

The Pyrogenesis Engine was designed from the ground up by WFG programmers. Its open-ended architecture can accomodate RTS and RPG game types.

A brief feature list of the Pyrogenesis Engine follows:

SUPPORT

• Access to extensive documenation
• Well-commented code
• WFG developers just an email away

TECHNICAL

• Language: C++
• Scripting Language: Javascript
• Data files: XML (with transparent and automatic conversion to binary files)
• Rendering: OpenGL with shaders
• Libraries used:

OpenAL, OpenGL, Boost, Crypto++, CxxTest, DevIL, SDL, SpiderMonkey, Vorbis, wxWidgets, Xerces

• OSes:
  • Windows 2000, XP, 2003, XP64, Vista
  • Linux
  • MacOSX (in progress)
• System Requirements:

1 GHz CPU, modern graphics card (GF3 at minimum), 512 MB RAM

MODS

• Aspects of the game can be tweaked with tools or by modifying XML and Javascript files to totally change the game.
• Easily modify content (units, buildings, the tech tree, ..) without touching any C++ code.

— Console command panel — The game code is separate from the core engine.

• Uses open, standard file formats: COLLADA 3D assets, Zip archives

EDITOR — Includes a level editor (Atlas) integrated with the Pyrogenesis engine. — The editor uses the same rendering engine as the game itself. — Deform terrain in real-time and sculpt intricate landscapes quickly and intuitively. — Create a level and try it out in the editor immediately.

• Includes an Actor Editor that has a GUI interface to assist in defining the entities visually in the game.
• Includes a Random Map Generator and custom scripting languge
• A sound tool allows defining sound properties.

NETWORK

• Peer to peer, no central server
• Lockstep simulation

(planned: reliable UDP for firewall punchthrough, detection of cheating/OOS)

GRAPHICS — OpenGL based rendering engine with shaders — Hierarchal skeletal animation and deformation system based on COLLADA

• Fancy animated water with refraction, reflection
• Realistic Shadows

— Particle effects — Environmental lighting effects (time of day, sunset) — Flexible terrain renderer that uses alpha maps to seamlessly blend terrain

AI — A* pathfinding — Designed to support "RTS style" AI (workers, NPCs)

TOOLS

• Visual Studio, Premake, autobuilder, CppDoc
• COLLADA, DDS Plugins

Why?

Why should you as a student or a professor be interested in using Pyrogenesis?

• The game itself is visually attractive as delivered. Instead of the all too frequent programmer's art", you have quality artwork at your fingertips that allows showing your project in its best light.
• WFG has taken great pains to emphasize history through out development stressing authenticity and accuracy; always remembering the educational opportunity we have in games.
• The software is portable (works on Linux and Windows, MacOSX coming soon).
• The code and design are fairly well documented (comments, CppDoc documentation, Wiki, some full technical reports, reams of forum posts with rationale and discussion).
• We willing to go open source.
• The project is made up of gamers / people looking to get into the industry; a good deal of experience in this area has been gained and can be passed on.

Licensing

For the source code, we suggest a common open-source license such as the GPL. The artwork would be made available for academic and non-commercial use (this is to prevent unscrupulous people from selling the finished product).

FAQ

When can this get started? <<We need to make arrangements for efficiently distributing the data files and would like to finish the second revision of the network code. However, we are in principle available for collaborative work starting now.>>

What is WFG's angle? <<Two of our programmers have had the pleasure of being able to work on parts of 0 A.D. within the scope of a course project. This yielded attractive results because the new work could be shown in the context of a full game and also advanced the project's development. Having seen the success of this approach, we would like to extend the same chance to interested students and hopefully integrate new developments into the public version of the game.>>