A New Zero (Open Beta)

Posted by Derek Yu Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:56:00 GMT


A New Zero is a team-based multiplayer game by programmer Alex Austin of Cryptic Sea (Gish, Blast Miner). In the game you can pilot either a plane or one of two types of boats to try to take out the opposing team’s base. ANZ is procedurally-generated and is impressively small (just under a megabyte), but more importantly, it looks like a hell of a lot of fun! I haven’t played it yet, but falicon writes (via TIGForums):

We had a network game of this at lunch today at work. One person downloaded it and suddenly half the office was on board. We couldn’t quite get the planes working right but the gunboats are certainly fun… It is in beta so it has a pretty brutal learning curve and the controls need polish. But it is really neat and I love the graphical styling. The network game just worked which is always nice.

TIGdb: Entry for A New Zero

P.S. Happy belated birthday, Dr. King!

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Comments

  1. Mark Johns said about 1 hour later:

    Looks pretty. I like the abstract muted dusk colors, and the reflections – and I am totally pro indie multiplayer ventures.

    If EnergyTurtle does a Saturday TIGS game night, I nominate this in the lineup.

  2. Falican said about 1 hour later:

    Yay I’m quoted, but you spelt my nick wrong in it is falicAn!

  3. Screwtape said about 1 hour later:

    I see the powerstation, but where’s the pig? WHERE’S THE PIG?

  4. eobet said about 2 hours later:

    Clicking on the first link in that post triggest Avast Anti-Virus, claiming that the site contains a trojan named JS:Agent-BA [trj]…

    …might be a false positive, though since I’ve been to the site before, but better safe than sorry.

  5. YuRiPa said about 2 hours later:

    Yeah, Avast told me the same. Any confirmation? I really want to try this.

  6. Alex May said about 3 hours later:

    It could just be a compression algorithm coincidentally used by virus-makers causing this. Just ignore it, Alex Austin isn’t about to infect your machine.

    I tried this when the IGF entrants were announced - I absolutely LOVE the aesthetic, the sounds and the graphics are really awesome. And the procedural content is fantastic too. I also think the CSG stuff is totally wicked.

    I had problems with the controls, and found it hard to aim, but I guess those are just a matter of practice.

  7. Aribar said about 4 hours later:

    Hi, I’m just a visitor that looks over your site. I haven’t registered on the forums or anything.

    This game looks neat (haven’t downloaded it yet, but I couldn’t think of many naval online games and wanted to try it out), but I don’t think that link is safe.

    It tried to open up some .pdf file, but I think I managed to stop it before doing that. I googled the link and found that some other site was hacked and redirected people to the same page (here is what I found: http://www.sciencepunk.com/v5/2009/01/sciencepunk-hacked/ ). If you don’t trust that link, then just google/yahoo/whatever 116.50.15.25.

    I’m not going to go to that site and download A New Zero until I know that it is 100% safe.

  8. jph wacheski said about 5 hours later:

    I would say the anti-virus warning is bogus,. as we have been having the same issue with procedurally generated games made with ZGameEditor,. see; http://www.emix8.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=346

    we figure it is lazy anti-virus software writers not looking for well used exe-compressors,. so used to bloated corporate software,. lol.

    ANZ is very nice ;)

  9. MisterX said about 7 hours later:

    AntiVir also reported that the page contains malware, something it didn’t do when I visited the a few days ago.

    Well, trying ANZ out now :)

  10. Gr.Viper said about 7 hours later:

    So, Ramjets evolved into this… Cool!

    But why aren’t they mentioned as previous projects? ;)

  11. Snow said about 8 hours later:

    Very interesting concept and it looks fun. I love games with such realistic physics. Definitely will be trying this. However, if you want to promote the game better through a youtube video - change the music. Consider it constructive criticism in the dept of advertising. That track sounds like someone let loose a 12 year old on a church organ. It’s nerve racking. Of course you can always turn the speakers off, but it’s nice to have a decent atmospheric track.

  12. Lyx said about 8 hours later:

    I really like the idea of the game as well as the simple graphics (which strangely, seem to be overly hardware demanding). At least at this development phase however, i do not like the execution at all. From the controls to collision-detection issues to the presentation and physics of the bullets, i do not consider the game fun at this current development phase. I would certainly call this more alpha than beta.

  13. Arnold said about 8 hours later:

    HERE’S SUB ZERO…

    NOW, A NEW ZERO.

  14. judgespear said about 9 hours later:

    I can’t figure out how to play this game at all. The controls are a complete mess to me and the physics are way too complex to control with a keyboard alone. I couldn’t find any option for joystick support. Not only that, for some reason the game lags like hell and seems to be poorly optimized, making it damn near impossible to play anyway.

  15. judgespear said about 9 hours later:

    I can’t figure out how to play this game at all. The controls are a complete mess to me and the physics are way too complex to control with a keyboard alone. I couldn’t find any option for joystick support. Not only that, for some reason the game lags like hell and seems to be poorly optimized, making it damn near impossible to play anyway.

  16. judgespear said about 9 hours later:

    er sorry for the double post, the site glitched for a second there

  17. MisterX said about 10 hours later:

    Whenever you directly apologize for a double post, you actually create a triple post, thus having much more to apologize for! Ironic, isn’t it? :P

    I’ve played ANZ for a short while and I can agree with Lyx. It’s a very promising game, but so far there isn’t a lot to it. The framerate was also quite bad for me. I managed to get the hang of the controls, but it seemed pretty hard to deliberately hit anything, anyway.

  18. trav said about 11 hours later:

    Google also reports the page hosts malware, however it claims that the malware didn’t infect it just from visiting the site

  19. trav said about 11 hours later:

    yeah, if you view source on that page there’s a script that’s been appended to the bottom of the html page, can’t tell what it is but it looks dodgey

  20. Alex Austin said about 11 hours later:

    The virus on the page is fixed now, I’m not sure what’s causing it but I’m pretty sure it’s our crappy webhost.

    If you’re having performance problems turning of the reflections will speed it up the most. If you don’t like the gameplay then tough shit.

  21. Eddie said about 13 hours later:

    Wow, under a megabyte? My simple file parser that I’ve just coded was about 1MB, let alone an entire 3D game..

  22. Foppy said about 13 hours later:

    The movie looks great and I like the combination with the music, it’s quite serene (coupled with the graceful airplanes) and original. :)

  23. BeamSplashX said about 15 hours later:

    True, you can’t really complain about gameplay when the thing’s under a megabyte.

  24. BeamSplashX said about 15 hours later:

    Correction: When plenty of people like it already AND it’s under a megabyte.

  25. trav said about 17 hours later:

    Beam, we can always complain about the game play, Alex is just saying he doesn’t give a crap

  26. Raigan said about 17 hours later:

    what _is_ that organ music by the way? it’s totally awesome/disturbing.

  27. Phasma Felis said about 18 hours later:

    Is…is the coat-of-arms character set all from Commodore 64 ASCII?

    I think I’m going to cry.

  28. Phasma Felis said about 18 hours later:

    Also, Alex, please please please for the love of God put a leftie-friendly option in the final version. (Arrow keys instead of WASD). It’s a huge pain trying to play like this.

  29. Phasma Felis said about 18 hours later:

    But, uh, it’s still awesome, though :)

  30. BoyBoy said about 19 hours later:

    Good game, although I didn’t realise I was playing online until the end! Hahah. Fun.

  31. gorecore said 1 day later:

    Awesome idea packaged in clear visuals and iced with nifty charset which awakened my glitchy imagination. And please, please: make an option of changing the mouse sensitivity. I know it can be changed via the config file, but this way is too problematic.

  32. gorecore said 1 day later:

    Ok, I admit, I’m a lazy little cryboy. Please have mercy upon me.

  33. eobet said 2 days later:

    “If you don’t like the gameplay then tough shit”???

    I think people were complaining about controls, and not game features.

    If we don’t buy your games, then tough shit…

  34. judgespear said 2 days later:

    I wasn’t complaining about gameplay. I just said that the game seems to be poorly optimized (or as someone else here said “hardware demanding” despite its simple graphics), and about the controls, both of which can be fixed without altering your “tough shit” gameplay.

  35. Alex Austin said 3 days later:

    Oh no! One guy from TIGSource isn’t going to buy my game! I quit!

    If I hadn’t quit I would’ve added options for joystick, mouse and keyboard settings in the next version. I would’ve probably consulted with an optimization expert like judgespear and improved the framerate and networking code. Unfortunately though I’ve already quit :-(

  36. falsion said 3 days later:

    What’s with the attitude?

  37. Phasma Felis said 5 days later:

    Heh, I figured all that stuff was on the agenda. :) I only mentioned the left-handed keyboard thing because a lot of developers *do* completely overlook that, and Cryptic Sea has had troubles there before.

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