''Galactic Arms Race'' (GAR) is a space shooter 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 space shooter and

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

with

single player A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player is expected throughout the gameplay. Video games in general can feature several game modes, including single-player modes designed to be played by a single player in addi ...

co-op A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, 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 democr ...

, and

PVP Player versus player (PvP) is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between human players. This is often compared to player versus environment (PvE), in which the game itself controls its players' opponents and is usually off ...

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 (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 rep ...

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 t ...

evolutionary algorithm Evolutionary algorithms (EA) reproduce essential elements of the biological evolution in a computer algorithm in order to solve "difficult" problems, at least Approximation, approximately, for which no exact or satisfactory solution methods are k ...

. 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 Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

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 code, managed Runtime system, runtime environment that Microsoft Gaming developed to facilitate video game game development, development. XNA is ...

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

Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

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. Des ...

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 was an American 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 developme ...

. 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 an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE has a corporate office i ...

. 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 Action role-playing video games Indie games Microsoft XNA games Multidirectional shooters Multiplayer and single-player video games Shoot 'em ups Video games developed in the United States Windows games Windows-only games