Where to get it

Steam

2001 · Racing · Strategy

Armagetron Advanced

Armagetron is a multiplayer game in 3d that attempts to emulate and expand on the lightcycle sequence from the movie Tron. It's an old school arcade game slung into the 21st century. Highlights include a customizable playing arena, HUD, unique graphics, and AI bots. For the more advanced player there are new game modes and a wide variety of physics settings to tweak as well. It is available for Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, AmigaOS 4 and OpenBSD as free software released under version 2 of the GNU General Public License.

Released: 2001
Platforms: Linux Windows macOS
Genres: Racing Strategy
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Modes: Multiplayer Single-player
Themes: Science fiction

About

Armagetron Advanced is a multiplayer snake game in 3D based on the light cycle sequence from the film Tron. It is available for Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, AmigaOS 4 and OpenBSD as free and open-source software.

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The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Two or more players are represented by dual-wheeled motor vehicles, or light cycles, in a grid-lined arena. The vehicles constantly move forward, leaving a colored trail behind them as they travel. Contact with either the arena walls or a trail left by a player will result in death and elimination from the battle (not only does this remove their trail entirely, the explosion also breaches trails a short distance away). Therefore, players attempt to box each other in order to force their opponents to touch their trail or one of the arena walls. Players can change the direction of movement, by turning 90 degrees to the left or right (though in some servers the number of axes is more than four, making it possible to turn 45 degrees, or none at all).

Being close to a colored trail causes the bike to accelerate; the closer the player is to the trail, the greater the acceleration. This allows players to accelerate and use the resulting speed advantage to outmaneuver their opponents. Players are able to use a brake to slow down, though the effectiveness of the brake varies from server to server. Some servers even implement a 'speed brake', which turns the brake key into an accelerator.

Development

Development started in 2000 under the name "Armagetron - Multiplayer Lightcycle Game" as free and open-source software released under version 2 of the GNU General Public License on SourceForge.net. In March 2005 the project continued under the name "Armagetron Advanced", which is also hosted on sourceforge.net.

In 2007, "Armacycles Advanced" was chosen as an alternative secondary game name for the Fedora Linux operating system to avoid future potential trademark issues. For the same reason, "Retrocycles" was chosen as another secondary game name to use with the Steam distribution service in 2020.