This is my submission to the DXStudio Summer 2009 Demo Contest, running 18 June 2009 to 17 Sept 2009.

It is a multiplayer 3D spaceflight simulation demo, featuring good old pac-man as enemy AI. And kind of a tribute to the MMO space game Jumpgate by Netdevil, which I used to play for quite a long time. Multiplayer ability is being realized without a dedicated server application, just using a message dispatcher on a remote server for data transfer between the clients.

Features

• MS Windows only, windowed in fixed size 1024x768
• Client-only multiplayer with connection to a central server, used as data dispatcher
• 3D space flight with a "newtonian-like" acceleration and drag behaviour
• Selection of different ship types with different attributes
• Three AI enemy types ("MadPacs") with basic "distributed spawning" (clients can trigger AI spawn on other clients)
• Player versus Player fights with client sync'ing
• Basic asteroid mining and ship hull repair feature
• Switching of views (1st person main view)
• ChatWindow (one channel only)
• Dynamic creation/removal of objects in space (e.g. asteroids), based on a position-bitmap
• Object-to-object interaction done by ray-casting and face collision tests, not using physics engine
• Persistant player data saved to local xml file (encrypted data)
• Usage of dynamic shadowing, basic animations and bumpmapping
• Distant-related sounds on several channels
• In-application webbrowser (used for help/credits screens)
• In-application video play (used for a "TV" in space)

Known Issues

• BY DESIGN: As network message processing is linked to the clients' framerate, weak clients (having very low fps) could bog down communication.
• BY DESIGN: On program startup, the 3D scene(s) are already running in background (to ensure quick availability when launching). So, even when showing the main menu only, fps need some time to recover after startup. This is notable especially when running the program and immediately switching to the "Intro" topic.
• BUG: Shooting at the main station's landing lights causes a 'function not found' error
• (more to come soon - I bet)

Introduction Video

For those who want to have a headstart with a video (rather than reading through the ingame manual). This is an ingame video with comments, recorded with the free version of AVS Video Editor 4 (showing a watermark in the beginning): pacwars_video.wmv

Installation

Download and unzip the file below. Preferably, store it to a separate folder, as some temporary files are created at runtime. Start by double-clicking the extracted *.exe. If not already present on your machine, the DXStudio player will be installed automatically then, too. To run, PacWars needs an internet connection, as the program contacts the "multiplayer data dispatcher" (aka DXStudioServer.exe) on demo.dxstudio.com. There is no "pure offline" operation mode.

Screenshots

Ship docked at Main Station



Undocked, near Main Station



Being attacked by a "MadPac"