Iron Tide

The game

Iron Tide is a battlefield shooter in the old style: you see the war through your soldier's eyes, or from behind them, or from behind the jeep or tank you have taken. Thirty-two soldiers fight across one big map — a river valley with a farm, a factory, a town at the bridge and a base at each end — for five control points.

It was made for the Amiga. Its 3D view is drawn by a raycaster, the way the great early shooters were, with walls of every height, floors coloured cell by cell, windows you can see through, and sprites hidden properly behind sandbags and hedges. The same game runs on Windows, sharper, and the two meet in the same battles online.

How a battle works

Each team starts with 250 tickets. Every soldier who dies costs their team one.
Stand in a flag's circle to take it. The more of you there are, the faster it turns; if both teams are there, it stays put. An enemy flag goes neutral first, then yours.
Every five seconds, the team holding more flags takes the difference off the other's tickets.
A team at zero has lost. Ten seconds later, the next round begins — with the town rebuilt.
Come back to life at your base, or at any flag your team holds.

32 soldiers

Sixteen a side on one map, every place without a player filled by a bot that picks objectives, takes cover, fetches vehicles and turns on whoever shoots it. Run into someone and you bounce off: nobody walks through anybody.

Jeeps and tanks

Two tanks and four jeeps at each base, life-size beside a soldier. Jeeps are fast with a machine gun; tanks are slow, tough, wreck a jeep in one shot, and drive straight through sandbags, hedges, crates, doors and plaster walls. Fast vehicles run soldiers down.

Rifles and rockets

A rifle that is more accurate standing still, and a rocket launcher for vehicles and walls, refilled at your base or a flag you hold.

Online, any Amiga

A server list in every copy; join any battle, a random one, or an address. The server does the bots' thinking, so even a 7 MHz Amiga joins full battles.

Host your own

Run the server on a PC or a Linux box and it puts itself on the list. The official server, IRON TIDE HQ, never closes.

Made from scratch

The map, every texture, every sprite and every sound is generated by the game's own tools — nothing borrowed.

A town you can take apart

Forty-six buildings stand on the map — houses in the bridge town, farmsteads and hamlets, the factory halls, and bunkers in the bases — every one whole, with its roof, its doors, its furniture, and windows or firing slits to see through. You can walk into any of them, shoot out of them, and bring them down.

Doors. Press E to open the door in front of you, and again to shut it (not on someone standing in it). The factory halls have steel doors that slide in pairs. Shoot a door down and its doorway stays open for good.
Roofs. Slate on the brick houses, red tiles on the plastered ones, corrugated iron on the factory halls. Indoors there is a ceiling over your head; bring the building down and the roof comes down with it.
Furniture. Tables and chairs, beds, wardrobes, bookshelves, stoves, sofas and pot plants in the houses; workbenches, machines, racks and barrels in the halls. You walk round it, hide behind it — a wardrobe stops a bullet, a table only half the time — and it breaks into splinters under fire.
Windows. You see through glass, into a room and out of the far side; so does the enemy. The first bullet shatters a pane — after that, shots go straight through.
Walls. Every wall on the map comes down: rockets and tank shells knock them over, rifles chip at them. Houses, halls, bunkers, the bases' own walls, sandbags, hedges, crates, the woods, the trees, even the rock. The rubble is low: climb over it, or lie behind it.
Collapse. When half of a building's walls are gone, the rest comes down in a cloud of dust — and buries anyone still inside.
Supports. Press B to put up a timber prop in the building in front of you. Each one holds it up longer: with four in place it stands until nine walls in ten are rubble. Every soldier carries two; fetch more at your base.

Pictures

Straight from the game: the Windows version's sharp picture, and the Amiga's own screen. Click one to see it large.

The battlefield

A river valley about four hundred metres square, the same for both sides turned round. The river runs corner to corner between the armies, with three bridges over it. Roads join everything; forests, hedgerows, stone walls, rocky hills, sandbags and forty-six buildings give cover — until they don't.

Red base: South-west. Two tanks, four jeeps, and the red army's spawn.
A · the farm: A farmhouse in hedged fields, on the red side.
B · the factory: A factory hall and a yard of crates, on the red side.
C · the bridge: The wide middle bridge and the town on both banks. Everyone wants it.
D · E: The factory and the farm again, on the blue side.
Blue base: North-east, the mirror of the red one.

The arsenal

A red soldier — Rifleman
30 rounds, five a second

A blue soldier firing — Rocket launcher
three rockets: wrecks vehicles and walls

Play it

On an Amiga

Kickstart 2.0 or later and a megabyte. A floppy that boots straight into the game, or a program for your hard disk. The A1200 is the machine it was made for; fast memory helps a great deal. To play online — and to log in the first time — you need a TCP/IP stack (Roadshow, AmiTCP, Miami...); tested with Roadshow 1.15.

Pictures a second	160×80	128×64	96×48	64×40
A1200 + fast memory	7	10	16	25
A1200 as it came	2.5	3.0	4.8	7.8
A500 / A600	1.0	1.5	2.0	2.8

On Windows

Any 64-bit Windows PC. A window you can stretch (F11 for full screen), mouse look, a gamepad if you have one, and the 3D view at 320×160, a sharp 640×320, or the Amiga's own 160×80.

Controls

WASD move · mouse turns · left button fires · E door or vehicle · R reload · Q weapon · B support · V camera · Tab scores · 0–5 where to come back

Your licence

The first time it starts, the game asks you to log in with your account, or to enter a serial number and make an account for it. After that it remembers you, and checks your licence each time it starts — or plays on for two weeks without the internet.

Online

Choose Find a battle online: the server list shows every battle, the official one first. Return joins, Space joins any, I types an address. Hosting is one command: itserver -name "MY BUNKER".

Getting in

The beta

The beta is open to anyone with an Amiga or a Windows PC. Make an account and ask to join; as soon as an organiser lets you in, your account page offers the downloads, and the game lets you log in. 3 players already in.

Make an account

A serial number

Been given a serial number? It is a licence on its own: enter it in the game, or here, and make your account with it — no waiting.

Enter a serial number

What we ask of testers

Play: alone, online, on the machine you have.
Tell us what breaks, what is slow on your Amiga, and what is no fun.
Host a battle now and then, if you can.

What we keep

Your account name, e-mail address and what you tell us when you sign up — for running the beta and nothing else. Passwords are kept only as a salted hash. Ask and we delete it all.

Questions

Does it cost anything?: No. The beta is free.
Which Amiga do I need?: Any with Kickstart 2.0 and a megabyte runs it. A stock A500 manages a small view and small battles at a few pictures a second; an A1200 runs the full 16-a-side battle, comfortably with fast memory.
Can I play without the internet?: Once you have logged in, yes: single player against the bots plays on for two weeks between checks (for ever on an Amiga with no clock). Online play needs a TCP/IP stack on the Amiga.
Can I play against friends on the same network?: Yes. Start the server on any PC; it appears on everyone's list, or they type its address. itserver -open lets anyone on your network in without a licence check.
Does the town really fall down?: Every building on the map, every round, furniture and all. Then it is all rebuilt for the next.
Can I go inside?: Every building, through its doors (or through a hole you made). Inside there are rooms full of furniture to take cover behind.
How long until I am let in?: We let testers in in batches. Your account page shows where you are in the queue.