Welcome to the Grid!

Hello itch.io. This game has been around for a long time, it started life as early as 2000 and stubbornly refuses to die. Now it’s available here!

Enjoy!

If you’re new: Armagetron Advanced is modelled after the Lightcycle sequence of the Movie “Tron”. It’s about going fast, making sharp turns, and letting your opponents crash into the deadly trail you leave behind. It’s best enjoyed in online multiplayer.

If you’re a returning veteran: Major changes since 0.2.8.3 (available elsewhere) on the game client are better readability for the console output, text input and ingame menu, better initial configuration, keyboard layout reminders and an initial, slightly easier match against an AI.

Major addition on the server are external scripts; they get fed the ladderlog output and their output is parsed as console input. The ladderlog output has been expanded to make that feature more useful. Since these scripts are launched as external processes, they can be written in any language.

Patch Notes

Changes since 0.2.8.3.5:

Fixed Bugs

• Windows: DPI scaling behavior wrong (#33)
• Debian builds: Documentation html files have empty last change (#9)
• Socket and unclean exit trouble due to fork(), execve() and exit() interaction (#13)
• Ubuntu PPA release candidate builds would overwrite previous stable releases (#15)
• Language string identifier silence_player_text used twice (#22)
• Bad video mode error recovery (#23)
• AppRun script does not work if call path contains spaces (#24)
• Included forum links outdated (#25)
• Client segfaults on OpenBSD (#26)
• Client compiled with clang 10.0 (optimized) sefgaults on logout (#28)
• Valgrind reports uses of unitialized, freed or invalid memory (#29)

New Features

• Update German translation (#2)

• Adapt ChangeLog and fingerprint generation to git (#11)

• Integrated build system (#14)

• Make playback time display optional (#16)

• Deploy to itch.io (#19)

• Credit contributors in patch notes (#21)

• Added detection and reaction code for timing assist bots

• /shuffle now works before you actually join a team

• Implemented /shout command and associated settings

• Fixed suspension and silenced status not being re-applied after a player disconnects and rejoins a server.

• Tweaks to enemy influence system.

• Ingame menu and console now are drawn on top of a semi-transparent, darkened area for increased readability.

• New first start menu with clearer language selection and initial setup.

• Tutorial match against one AI at slower speed.

• Tutorial tooltips for the most important keybindings.

• ADD_MASTER_SERVER command to announce a server to a new master server. Simplifies the process to list your server on a subculture.

• Team launch positions logged to ladderlog with POSITIONS event. Disabled by default.

• New command-line option “–input” added to poll for input from a file instead of stdin.

• Added WHITELIST_ENEMIES_[IP/USERNAME] to allow players to be enemies, even if they come from the same IP address and ALLOW_ENEMIES_SAME_IP is disabled (which is its default setting).

• GAME_END, NEW_MATCH, and NEW_ROUND ladderlog events include date and time.

• Added ENCODING ladderlog event, which specifies the encoding for data in ladderlog.txt.

• “–input” now can be used more than once to read from multiple files or pipes.

• new team management ladderlog messages:

   TEAM_CREATED <team name>
   TEAM_DESTROYED <team name>
   TEAM_RENAMED <old team name> <new team name>
   TEAM_PLAYER_ADDED <team name> <player>
   TEAM_PLAYER_REMOVED <team name> <player>
  

• Manage external scripts on Unix dedicated servers. New commands: SPAWN_SCRIPT, RESPAWN_SCRIPT, FORCE_RESPAWN_SCRIPT, KILL_SCRIPT, LIST_SCRIPTS, SCRIPT_ENV.

• New setting ACCESS_LEVEL_ANNOUNCE_LOGIN that determines if a player’s login/logout message can be announced.

• Authentication is now enabled by default.

Other Changes

• Make custom camera the default for new players (#35)

Contributors (to this version)

Daniel Harple, Hugh McMaster, Luke-Jr, Manuel Moos, Uzix, fman23, zolk3ri