Topic: Nether Earth Remake is a remade version of the very first real time strategy gam

[Software Santa]

Nether Earth Remake is a remade version of the very first real time strategy game. Versions available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X systems.

NETHER EARTH REMAKE

Description

Nether Earth was the very first real time strategy game. It worked on a SPECTRUM machine, and only needed 48KB of RAM to work!! It has all the tipical elements of strategy games: resources, factories, combat units, etc. Here's a screen shot of the original game, and one of the remake (you can see more screens in the screenshot section):

The goal

As in almost all strategy games, the goal is to eliminate the enemy. To achieve it, you have WARBASES, that have the ability to produce ROBOTS (your combat units). You can design your own robots by combining several pieces (TRACKS, ANTIGRAVITATIONAL DEVICE, CANNONS, MISSILE BAYS, etc). To build robots you need RESOURCE points. Each warbase procudes 5 resource points every day, but you can increase it by conquering FACTORIES. To conquer a factory, let a robot stay in its door for almost 12 hours, then the factory will be yours. Once you have a combat foe ready to attack, you can send your robots against the enemy robots, factories or warbases. To conquer a warbase you have to follow the same procedure as to conquer a factory. Once you have conquered all the warbases, you have won the game. Will you be able to conquer all them?

The robots

The most exciting pat of Nether Earth is that it allows you to design you own robots. You can build robots by using the following construction pieces:
    Traction pieces:
    - BIPOD: The simplest traction piece. It's very slow, but very resistant, and will give to your robot some extra shield points.
    - TRACKS: A fast traction piece, it's not as expensive as the antigravitational device, but is quite fast.
    - ANTIGRAVITATIONAL DEVICE: The fastest traction piece. But also expensive.
  
    Weapons:
    - CANNONS: The cheapest weapon, and of course the less powerful.
    - MISSILES: A great weapon, more powerful than cannons.
    - PHASERS: The most effective weapon.
    - NUCLEAR BOMB: The most destructive weapon. Once fired, it will destroy all the robots and buildings near the robot that has the bomb (including it).

    Special:
    - ELECTRONIC BRAIN: This piece enhances the intelligence of the robots, allowing them to perform your orders more effectively.

As more pieces you put to your robot, more shield points will it have, so it's important that if you have enough money, put as many weapons as you can into your robot!


The Remake

The remake is coded in C++, the graphics are rendered using OpenGL and the SDL library. And the 3D models have been created using 3DStudio MAX. The source code will be available once the game is finished. I only inlcude the Windows version here, but the code is crossplatform and it should compile also in LINUX of MacOS.

Nether Earth is a very interesting game from the point of vies of Artificial Intelligence (AI) since all the robots are self controlled. You just have to give your orders to the robots and they will try to follow them. For instance you can tell a robot to "CAPTURE NEUTRAL FACTORIES", and the robot will find it's own path to reach the closest factory avoiding the obstacles they found. I plan to improve the AI of the robots in future versions, but by the moment the robots use a simple "Depth First Search" algorithm ( with limited depth) to choose the actions to take.

http://www2.braingames.getput.com/nether/default.asp