New FREE Star Trek TOS game now available!

[GambitRealm]

Hello everybody,

We have just released to the public our FREE Star Trek game based on the Torque 3D engine. It is titled Star Trek: NCC1701 and features for the first time the entire original Enterprise rendered in full-scale 3D. This means players will actually be able to walk the entire interior of the ship from top to bottom when all the interior decks are completed.

For now, our playable demo includes the bridge and the shuttlebay (you can turbolift between the two), and the ability to fly a shuttle around the outside of the ship and practice various combat and flight missions.

Check out our website at http://gambitrealm.com for the free download link and more information.

Did I mention you can also play as an old-school Klingon and fly their cool fighter out of the back of a D7 battle cruiser?

Many things never before possible now are, check out the site to learn more, and please feel free to pass this link around to any other Star Trek fan sites you can think of...

NOTE: This is completely FREEWARE, with no registration required to download, and no ads to view or any other hinderances. Just download and play.

Live long and prosper!

Paul Weston
Gambit Realm development team
paul@gambitrealm.com

Some screenshots to wet your appetite:

 

[WRStone]

I'm responding in more detail here rather than in the TOS forum.

As we discussed there, I'm a Linux user and there's no immediately likelihood of a Linux version any time soon because of the technical restrictions of the platform.

That said, I'm going to attempt to get it running under Wine. I don't see any forums or wikis or such at your Web site ... is this being set up, or should I just email someone if/when I happen to get it running in some fashion?

Dakota Smith

 

[Amaris]

It's pretty neat, particularly for a side project. The controls are something to get used to. When you're walking, using the mouse to turn is very sensitive. When out in space, using the mouse is very plodding and barely moves. Also, it's very easy to walk right through the hull, and then you have to respawn your guy. That said, I enjoyed running over the engineering crewman on the way out the shuttle bay. "He's dead Jim". Whoops.

Nice work, though, seriously.

 

[GambitRealm]

Hey again

Thanks for the feedback... Couple of tips which may help out:

When in the shuttle the mouse will be pretty much dead unless you are thrusting at the same time. Try left hand on wasd and right hand on mouse... Hold w while panning the mouse around to steer. When trying to chase down enemy ships use the reverse a lot to keep enemies in sight. So a lot of alternating between w and s while steering. Then a quick tap of the other mouse button will fire your weapon. Once you get onto it a bit you'll see it's quite maneuverable.

When walking, again use wasd and mouse together as with flying. The mouse buttons are interchangeable as well, meaning you can do the holding down on either button then the other bfn will become the fire btn. Anyhow try that and see if it helps.

There are some walls still missing collision so yes you may go through some. We're hunting those down and fixing them. The shuttle bay doors do not have collision either so be careful on the edge

Any questions comments etc just use the contact form on the website or email me directly at Paul.r.Weston on gmail.

It's exciting to have people playing this, I look forward to hearing more and providing more for you all to try as we get more done.

Cheers
Paul

 

[GambitRealm]

Oh yes one more thing... You didn't "run over" the crewman, you actually picked him up as a passenger . Any collision of a person with a vehicle will mount it. If there is already a driver they will take a back seat. If the crewman walks into the shuttle and you're not already inside, the ai will actually try to fly it with sometimes interesting results. Neat thing is if you are in a vehicle and hit ctrl-x you will dismount yourself and anyone else inside as well. So you could take the crewman for a ride by scooping him up and then land and hit ctrl-x and he'll start walking his path again.

Anyhow more to come. Have fun and keep leaving feedback.

P

 

[Amaris]

Thanks, I was trying to figure out how to dismount. As for the edge of the shuttle bay, um... too late.
When I fell out I started drifting downward, so I started to just sing "Free as a bird" to myself.

Still, it's a lot of fun!

 

[GambitRealm]

Glad you're enjoying the game... Ctrl-k will suicide your player if you are falling endlessly, then you can just hit spacebar to respawn. Also, sometimes if you get killed in the shuttle you won't dismount and may have trouble biting spacebar to respawn. If this happens just dismount, yes you can still dismount with ctrl-x after dying, then once you're out falling in space dead hitting the spacebar will respawn you again.

There are a few Easter Eggs in the game too. Fly through the fighter ring to activate the dogfight mission, and if you can kill the drone a secret mission ring will open up... Fly through that for a neat surprise. If you get through the secret mission another surprise happens.

Anyhow, keep playing and posting, I like the feedback.

Cheers
Paul

 

[GambitRealm]

Also, you have to try playing as a Klingon, their fighter flies really well, faster and more maneuvrable than the shuttle, and hitting tab for 1st person view yields a nice fullscreen flight mode. On foot their disruptor is stronger than a starfleet phaser. Of course either team has the phaser rifle which kills in one shot but whatever

And have you tried playing over LAN? Awesome... Try query master on the join screen and see if there's any servers running and you can play over the Internet. Check the readme file for info on setting up a server, it's simple.

Paul

 

[Timofnine]

Wow looks fantastic! Can't wait to download and give it a go!

 

[Sky]

Any chance of a Mac version?

 

[GambitRealm]

Hi again... Sadly our testing of torque 3d for mac with the AFX addon we use did not yield good results at all. Game was barely playable at all, performance is very poor on mac mini and midrange MacBook. We are waiting for a better version of the mac engine before producing a mac version of the game.

We did try though, but they're just not there with the mac engine yet to make it worth our while doing all the porting.

Perhaps later this year. Also we are waiting on torque 3d for iPhone so the game could play on apple devices, that is due to enter beta this fall.

Regards
Paul

 

[Joel_Kirk]

Hi again... Sadly our testing of torque 3d for mac with the AFX addon we use did not yield good results at all. Game was barely playable at all, performance is very poor on mac mini and midrange MacBook. We are waiting for a better version of the mac engine before producing a mac version of the game.

We did try though, but they're just not there with the mac engine yet to make it worth our while doing all the porting.

Perhaps later this year. Also we are waiting on torque 3d for iPhone so the game could play on apple devices, that is due to enter beta this fall.

Regards
Paul

And I'm thinking about getting a Mac....

Still, the game looks interesting...

 

[Itisnotlogical]

Is Torque 3D free and easy-to-use? Because the game engines I've tried to use to make a game so far have either been limited trial versions or hopelessly complicated tangles of codes and syntax and variables

 

[GambitRealm]

Hello,

No, Torque is not free. There is a trial binary version out there that you can use to build a game, but you have no source code access to the engine so are limited to what is out-of-the-box. Still, there is enough to get an idea of how it works, etc.

We use the commercial "indie" license for Torque 3D - meaning we purchased the product at a reduced rate because our sales are going to be less than a certain amount (at this time of course sales equal $0 since we can't charge for the game without a Star Trek license). But we did purchase it nonetheless and are licensed Torque developers. This gives us access to udpates, engine source code, and private forums on the Torque website.

Engines like Torque do require programming and graphical knowledge. It is pretty tricky to build a game without any relevant experience, all engines will require you to learn code and become familiar with various level design practices. If you are a beginner, I recommend something like Game Maker which is considerably more user-friendly, but of course will not produce results like we have with Torque 3D and its relevant design tools and extended codebase.

Regards,
Paul

 

[Itisnotlogical]

^^

Well, as long as it's reasonably functional it sounds alright if I don't buy the thing. I have some experience with code and semiamateurish experience in 3D design, but I'm just one person so I won't be able to create anything fancy or long-running, so for the moment it suits my purpose to see how I like it without commiting my cash.

 

[GambitRealm]

NCC1701 Game - MAJOR UPDATE 1.03 Available now!

Hello everyone,

We are pleased to announce our third patch for the Star Trek: NCC1701 game demo. This is a major update with many bug fixes and enhancements:

- several bug fixes related to scoring, targets, etc
- additional keyboard / mouse control options ("freelook" mode available)
- improved help screens and "How To Play" info
- Colour 3D renderings of decks on the turbolift maps
- Bigger, better explosions for flying vehicles and weapons
- Klingon Battle Cruisers now fire homing torpedoes (!)
- Updated ship's hull with more windows
- "Female Officer" class added to character selection choices

- Improved AI logic (upgraded to AI Kit v. 1.5)

To get this update, log into our members' area, and go to the Downloads page, where you will see this patch listed at the bottom of the list. It is about a 9 megabyte download.

Also, we are looking for more feedback about your experiences with the game. Does it run well on your machine? Are you able to control the shuttle and your player OK? Are you lost in terms of knowing what to do, or are you getting along OK? Please send feedback to us using the contact forms on our website, or by posting in our thread at TREK BBS (see link on the main FREE PLAYABLE DEMO page).

Many thanks for your interest - we have had over 750 downloads from 51 countries in all, in our first month of release. We are very pleased with the response and look forward to continued development.

Live long and prosper,
Paul Weston
Gambit Realm development team

 

[Owain Taggart]

I've played it and I think the specs are out of my reach. It doesn't play smoothly on my machine, which is an AMD 3200+ and a Geforce 6800GS. The framerate is very low and practically unplayable. If there's a way to play it with lower settings, I'd love to know. Is there a way to get the framerate to show?

 

[GambitRealm]

Hi there...

Sounds like your video card is not quite up to snuff... I've found the bottom end to be around the geforce 9000 series. It plays on my old 1.7 ghz machine with the 9800.

I suggest the newer nvidia midrange cards. I bought a gt220 i think it was, not too long ago, only about $100 and it made all the difference. The game should scream on your machine if it's 3 ghz or more, you just need to upgrade the video which you should be able to do for less than $100. It will make other games fly too...

Good luck, post back if you have any more questions.

Cheers,
Paul

Paul Weston
Gambit Realm development team

 

[Itisnotlogical]

I think the controls for the shuttle were pretty bad, especially how it righted itself every time you stop moving. Makes it pretty hard to get from the Klingon shuttle bay to the Enterprise one. Also, I do think that the specs are pretty out there for your average home comp... maybe you could make a low-end version with loading screens between areas?

 

[GambitRealm]

Hello again,

The game should run fine on most computers, it runs on my old 1.7 ghz machine, albeit a bit sluggish, but not bad. The key is the video card - in my old machine I have a GEForce 9800 which I would say is the lowest you can go. In my newer machine I run a one-year-old GT220 which works fine.

Many newer games require a medium to high end video card. There is a lot going on in the engine with dynamic lighting and processing that requires the beefier card. For less than $100 you will be able to play most new games out there with no issues.

As for the controls, we are a bit limited on what we can do because we require both mouse control for clicking on things and also mouse control for movement and flying. That's why you have to hold the right mouse button down while flying forward in order to steer, in order to temporarily disable the cursor movement. Once you get on to it, it actually makes sense and is not difficult to fly.

If you are running the latest 1.03 version, there is a hotkey "V" which will put you into "freelook" mode. When freelook mode is on you do not have to hold the right mouse button down, simply thrust forward with the "W" key and while you are moving you pan the mouse and it will steer you. Using these controls you have complete control and can execute many cool maneuvers, especially in the Klingon fighter which can turn tighter and hover in a vertical position for longer before leveling out. The auto-leveling is there for a reason, without it you quickly get disoriented in space and finding and zeroing in on the flying enemy targets is much harder.

Maybe try the game again if you upgrade your video card in the future. And practice with the "V" key to make flying easier. When in freelook mode after clicking "V", you will have no cursor to click on anything (like the icons at the bottom of the screen) - just right-click the mouse and the cursor will come back again.

Thanks for the feedback,
Paul