''GLtron'' is a 3D snake game based on the light cycle portion of the film '' Tron''. The game is

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

and has been ported to many mobile and non-mobile operating systems such as Windows, MacOS,

Symbian Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typic ...

and

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

over the years.

Development

After being originally a private university project by Andreas Umbach in June 1998, the game's open-source development started when the source code was put to SourceForge around 1999 under the GPL-2.0-or-later software license. The game's soundtrack features the track ''Revenge of the Cats'', which was composed and performed by Finnish musician Peter Hajba, who is also known by his demoscene nickname ''Skaven''. Ports to new platforms are primarily developed by the game's community.

Gameplay

The aim of the game is to be the last player riding. Cycles can be boosted with a limited turbo. There are various gameplay styles, including switching the gameplay from "booster" to "wall accel." to "both". "Booster" has an extra button for boosting, in addition to the standard left, right, glance left, glance right buttons, while "Wall ride" increases a player's light cycle's speed automatically depending on how close they are to an opponent's wall. "Both" incorporates both options for increasing the player's light cycle's speed. There are several arena sizes that can be selected, from "tiny" (which is best for two players on normal speed or people practicing their reflexes with 3 "mcp himself" difficulty-level bots on "crazy" speed) to "vast". The game is played using the keyboard to control the vehicle and the

mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...

to control the camera position, players can out ride competitors across the geometric grid.

Reception

In 2006, ''GLTron'' was recommended by The Mac Observer for its graphics and sound, considered good for a free software game, and support for different screen resolutions and input devices. Other reviews were positive too, for instance The Linux Game Tome gave 4/5 stars. The game was ported to multiple systems like Linux, Windows, MacOS as also mobile systems that have support for OpenGL ES like

, and as also the OpenPandora handheld. Gltron was downloaded between 2000 and 2016 1,500,000 times from SourceForge alone, while it is also packaged with many

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

s like

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of D ...

.gltron
on packages.debian.org

References

External links

* * * {{Tron 1999 video games Classic Mac OS games MacOS games Windows games Linux games Symbian games Open-source video games Snake video games Tron video games Android (operating system) games Free and open-source Android software Video games developed in Switzerland Video games scored by Peter Hajba

Development

Gameplay

Reception

See also

References

External links