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Pax Britannica

Programming, Video Games

Pax Britannica

No Fun Games is proud to present Pax Britannica, a one-button real-time strategy game we made for the GAMMA4 design competition. Our team includes designers/programmers Kira Boom, Renaud Bédard and me, artist Daniel Burton and composer Ben Abraham. Unfortunately we were not selected and will not be showing off our game at GDC. However, we had a great time making the game and I’m glad we finally get to release it to the public!

Windows Windows Download

Mac Mac Download

Linux Linux Download

The game was designed for 1-4 Xbox 360 controllers hooked up to a PC (the keyboard controls are A-F-H-L). Holding down the button spins the needle on the radial menu in the middle of the player’s factory ship. The needle will only travel as far as the player’s current resources allow. Releasing the button creates a ship that corresponds to the quadrant that the needle is pointing at: fighter, bomber, frigate, or a factory ship upgrade. Ships you spawn fight automatically using the latest in artificial aquatelligence technology. The player who keeps their factory ship alive wins!

We had been hoping to fix a few things for an official release, but the game has been “out there” on TIGSource for a few weeks now. In fact, we’re thrilled by all the positive feedback we’ve gotten! Pax Britannica has been picked up by the Indie Games Weblog, Bytejacker, PlayThisThing, and GayGamer. Furthermore, Darius Kazemi made this awesome video review:

Enjoy the game, and please leave your feedback and suggestions in the comments below.

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13 Responses to “Pax Britannica”

  1. Nav Says:
    March 1st, 2010 at 12:25 am

    Been ages since I commented here! But I just tried this and I really enjoyed it. I really like the aesthetic, particularly the music. It’s also a really clever mechanic too. I do wonder if I’m doing something wrong though – because I keep winning! I keep skipping the first quadrant to make only the larger two ships (which I initially did as a mistake) and find that I can destroy the enemy ship very quickly. Am I doing something wrong? Or is something you guys are tweaking?

    Anyway – congrats! This is a really clean, clever approach to a design constraint, especially since RTS’s seem to often have such unwieldy, complex controls. Nice job!

  2. Matthew Gallant Says:
    March 3rd, 2010 at 11:42 pm

    @Nav:

    The A.I. opponent is not particularly smart. We wanted an opponent that was easy to defeat so people could learn how to play the game. For a real challenge, I advise playing hotseat multiplayer with a pal!

    Thanks for the feedback, glad you enjoyed the game.

  3. Socapex Says:
    March 5th, 2010 at 3:54 pm

    I’m happy to hear a mac version is coming! I was able to play in crossover games, albeit often lagging, the game plays great. Do you have any plans to make a bigger, more complete version of this? Personnally I’m addicted, lol. I’d buy it to see some more stuff and difficulty levels.

    AWESOME work guys, love it!

  4. Matthew Gallant Says:
    March 7th, 2010 at 10:10 pm

    @Socapex: Thank you very much! We have a few balance and polish improvements coming with the Mac/Linux release. While we don’t have any immediate plans to expand the game, we might have a chance to revisit this idea down the road.

  5. Nils Says:
    March 8th, 2010 at 5:51 am

    Impressive in its simplicity! Haven’t been able to play against real people but I get the feeling there must be a lot of possible strategies available.

    How difficult would it be to include multiplay over internet? I think there is a great potential for it.

    All the best,
    Nils

  6. Matthew Gallant Says:
    March 8th, 2010 at 3:09 pm

    @Nils: Thanks! Setting up online multiplayer would be a fairly substantial endeavour. It would be very nice to have, but it’s not something we have planned at present.

  7. Samuel Garcia Says:
    March 13th, 2010 at 3:33 pm

    Sounds cool. Im trying to make a miniRTS(no I didnt base it off here), and I finally may get some cool ideas to simplify RTSes.

  8. Solozaur Says:
    March 18th, 2010 at 7:44 am

    Great little game! I played about 10 games in a row vs AI and i can’t get enough, i love to leave the timer to fill up and then spam little ships, the screen gets filled with them and i feel like a uber-carrier from Starcraft!

  9. neon Says:
    April 5th, 2010 at 5:01 pm

    love the game, so simple, brilliant for free for all against friends!
    any ideas when the mac/linux versions will be available?

    And any pointers as to how i could customise it? im only a very noob scripter an i’d have no intention of selling it or anything…(i already tried tampering with the sprites, but thats just pics) i cant find an easy way to change the balance of the game. any help?

  10. Matthew Gallant Says:
    April 5th, 2010 at 8:08 pm

    @neon: The No Fun gang is slugging out with end of semester work at the moment, but we’ll hopefully have OSX/Linux ports up in a month or two.

    As for modifying the game, all the ship stats are in the file “blueprints.lua” and the ship costs are in “production.lua”. Hope this helps!

  11. neon Says:
    April 6th, 2010 at 9:07 am

    yeah, that helps alot!

    thnx, an good luck

  12. Barts Says:
    May 9th, 2010 at 12:52 pm

    Hi,

    I downloaded Pax Britannica, played it to death, wrote a note on it on my blog (here: http://www.bartsnews.net/2010/03/pax-britannica-gratuitous-underwater.html ) and am currently writing an article for one of major Polish game portals. I would be curious as to what happened with the Mac version – are there any chances we’ll see it, or did it get canceled on the way?

    All the best from Poland,

    Barts

  13. Matthew Gallant Says:
    May 14th, 2010 at 6:03 pm

    @Barts: Thanks for your kind review! The Mac version is 99% finished and should be released before the end of the month.

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