''Galactic Arms Race'' (GAR) is a

space shooter A space flight simulation is a genre of flight simulator video games that lets players experience space flight to varying degrees of realism. Common mechanics include space exploration, space trade and space combat. Overview Some games in the ...

video game first released in 2010 by American studio Evolutionary Games in association with the Evolutionary Complexity Research Group at UCF (EPlex).

Gameplay

GAR is a hybrid

and

Action RPG An action role-playing game (often abbreviated action RPG or ARPG) is a subgenre of video games that combines core elements from both the action game and role-playing genre. Definition The games emphasize real-time combat where the player h ...

with

single player A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player is expected throughout the course of the gaming session. A single-player game is usually a game that can only be played by one person, while "single-player mode" is usuall ...

co-op A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

, and PVP on dedicated servers for up to 32 players. Players fly a space ship, destroy enemies, earn money and experience, gain levels, find items, and upgrade their ships. The main feature that differentiates GAR from other space shooters is a

procedural content generation In computing, procedural generation is a method of creating data algorithmically as opposed to manually, typically through a combination of human-generated assets and algorithms coupled with computer-generated randomness and processing power. In ...

(PCG) system that produces unique

particle system A particle system is a technique in game physics, motion graphics, and computer graphics that uses many minute sprites, 3D models, or other graphic objects to simulate certain kinds of "fuzzy" phenomena, which are otherwise very hard to repr ...

weapons. The game attempts to create weapons that players will like based on usage statistics of existing weapons using a custom version of the

NEAT Neat may refer to: * Neat (bartending), a single, unmixed liquor served in a rocks glass * Neat, an old term for horned oxen * Neat Records, a British record label * Neuroevolution of augmenting topologies (NEAT), a genetic algorithm (GA) for the ...

evolutionary algorithm In computational intelligence (CI), an evolutionary algorithm (EA) is a subset of evolutionary computation, a generic population-based metaheuristic optimization algorithm. An EA uses mechanisms inspired by biological evolution, such as reproduc ...

. GAR is one of the earliest video games to incorporate procedural content generation that is automatically and implicitly driven by player choice.

Platforms

The game runs on

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

only because it uses the

Microsoft XNA Microsoft XNA (a recursive acronym for XNA's not acronymed) is a freeware set of tools with a managed runtime environment that Microsoft developed to facilitate video game development. XNA is based on .NET Framework, with versions that run on Win ...

framework for graphics and sound. Initial versions were released for free in 2010. A commercial version became available via

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

and

Desura Desura was a digital distribution platform for the Microsoft Windows, Linux and OS X platforms. The service distributed games and related media online, with a primary focus on small independent game developers rather than larger companies. Desur ...

in 2012. Currently the developers are redoing their UI as the Microsoft XNA platform was killed off by Microsoft. The developers will likely change over to MonoGame which is an open source implementation of XNA.

Reception and awards

''Galactic Arms Race'' was a finalist in the 2010

Indie Game Challenge The Indie Game Challenge is an award competition run in conjunction between the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS), GameStop and The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University (SMU) to support independent video game development. Started ...

. A paper detailing the game's weapon evolution algorithm won the Best Paper Award at the

IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

. An early version of the game won an Editor's Choice Award on AiGameDev.com.

References

{{reflist

External links

''Galactic Arms Race'' website
2010 video games Indie games Microsoft XNA games Windows games Windows-only games Shoot 'em ups Multidirectional shooters Action role-playing video games Video games developed in the United States