ATTE (series)
From DoomWiki.org
The ATTE series is a set of three fan made games developed in the early 2000's who heavily feature assets from various games from id Software, most notably Doom and Hexen, but also other titles, such as Witchaven. Despite this, each of these titles feature original level design and a original, custom made engine, based on QuickBASIC. They make use of several libraries in assembly language, namely DirectQB and Dash, which are used as modules in QuickBASIC to provide a 320x200 VGA screen with 256 colors. They are also used to help speed up rendering as well as providing sound functionality.
Because of their underlying QuickBASIC codebase and inclusion of several routines in assembly, all the ATTE titles carry a significant performance deficit requiring a rather fast computer to function properly in DOS, far beyond what usual titles on this platform usually required.
The ATTE games were developed by Aleksander Trojanowski.
Contents
Roots: IDKFA[edit]
The ATTE series have their roots in IDKFA (video game), an earlier title that can be regarded as the predecessor to these games. Featuring visuals more reminiscent of Wolfenstein 3D, IDKFA was the author's first foray in realtime 3D graphics and provided the foundation on which the other titles would be based upon. Additionally, ATTE3 contains data references to the IDKFA engine.
ATTE[edit]
ATTE significantly expanded upon the author's previous title, both in terms of graphical quality and in general polish. The engine now supported orthogonal walls with different height, floor and ceiling, texture mapping and dynamic textures, along with light sourcing and other improvements, generally leading to a more visually consistent title. Despite being a short game, spanning only four levels, ATTE provided the corner stone for the later entries in the series by introducing several new features that would also be used in its successors.
ATTE was released in August 2001.
ATTE2[edit]
The sequel, simply called ATTE2, quickly followed up on ATTE. Similar to the first game, various assets from Doom were ripped and used, such as enemies, sprites, weapons and textures. ATTE2's engine featured new improvements, such as fog and perspective correct texture mapping. Unlike its predecessor, ATTE2 is a longer title through the use of larger maps. At the time, it represented Aleksander's most polished work to date, adding a level of granularity and detail to QuickBASIC titles that was only to be topped by the last and final release in the series.
ATTE2 was released in September 2001.
ATTE3[edit]
The final game in the series, ATTE3 significantly detours from its previous two titles, mostly apparent in its setting. Various ripped assets are once more used, this time primarily from Hexen and Witchaven. The engine now supports rotation, perspective transformation and 128x128 texturemaps. Spanning four levels, the game is relatively short, similar to the author's first game, and is more rooted in fantasy rather than science-fiction.
Aleksander Trojanowski left the project in an unfinished status because he was fed up with programming in QuickBASIC. The source code of the game was included, along with a level editor for others to use. Trojanowski mentioned working on a fourth entry in the ATTE series, but this was never to occur. As such, the last version of ATTE3 remained in alpha, released in January 2002.
External links[edit]
- IDKFA binary and engine source code, hosted at Archive.org
- ATTE release, uncompiled, hosted at Archive.org
- Compiled package of ATTE, hosted by DRD Team
- Compiled package of ATTE2, hosted by DRD Team
- ATTE2 review of the game, by Nebula Software
- ATTE3 binary and engine source code, hosted at Archive.org
- ATTE3 article/review of the game, by Nebula Software
- How QuickBASIC got Doomed: The story of IDKFA and the ATTE series, at Doomworld