Six years ago, at a time of high excitement for the real-time strategy genre, a good-looking click-and-drag number was released called Total Annihilation. Harking from an unknown US developer, the game was initially dismissed as a Command & Conquer clone, its chief selling point seeming to be the fairly inevitable move to full 3D units. Slowly, however, the game began to reveal its true depths. This wasn't just C&C-plus, this was war on a scale beyond compare, with dozens of uniquely useful units and a wealth of strategic options that remain extraordinary to this day.
Total Annihilation
Six years on, Total Annihilation has proved to be one of the most enduring and playable RTS games ever. Mods and total conversions are still in production, new units still appear on the Net on a regular basis, and the game is still played by hundreds of fans every day - which is more than can be said for contemporaries like Quake II and Age of Empires. Few would argue it's one of the best RTS games ever constructed.
GO FORTH AND CONQUER
Total Annihilation's basic strategy was to advance the existing RTS blueprint in every possible direction. Familiar elements were cribbed from the likes of Command & Conquer, but there was also a huge amount of innovation at a micro-level. TA's chief architect Chris Taylor is candid about his inspirations.
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'I was walking around E3 in 1995, checking out what everyone else had been up to when I came across Command & Conquer. I'd already heard about it and I was a fan of Westwood's Dune 2, but when I played C&C I was blown away. Until then, I'd become something of a career sports game developer, having worked on Hardball 2 and 4-D Boxing, but after playing C&C I said to myself, that's it, I'm going to build a real-time strategy game; no more sports games, from here on in it's tanks and jet fighters!'
Let's Get Together
In order to fulfil his dream of 'making things blow up', Chris called an old friend from his days working at Accolade, Shelley Day, who, along with industry legend Ron Gilbert (of Monkey Island fame), ran kiddie software developer Humongous Entertainment.
Ron Gilbert was keen for Humongous to branch out and set up a division geared towards a more mature market, and Chris's idea of 'the ultimate war game' seemed to take root. Soon after, Chris was drafted in to lead the development on the studio's first game, Total Annihilation. All that was left (apart from development) was to come up with a suitable studio name. In the end it came down to a flip of the coin. Heads, it was Frozen Yak; tails, it was Cavedog. The sheltered canine won.
Earth, Wind And Fire
When work on Total Annihilation began in January 1996, Chris's objectives were clear; the game was to feature true 3D terrain (as opposed to the split level-style maps of C&C), polygon rather than spritebased units and a gameworld that obeyed basic physical laws. These included true line-of-sight, proper ballistics and even wind and water effects.
'We were happy with the results of our early code experiments,' says Chris was exciting and we hac hopes for the way the various units would move. When a unit fired, we wanted its weapon barrel to recoil, a muzzle flash and smoke. The shell would then fly in a perfect arc and when hit, a unit would jolt. When we had all the physics and basic graphics done, it was then just a case of sitting down and writing the game.'
With most rival games offering less than half the content, you'd assume TA was a nightmare project. The game featured 150 land, sea and air units. 50 single-player missions and many multiplayer options. Surely the more physical objects a game has, the harder it is to build, test and balance?
'Yes, but we were very efficient,' grins Chris. 'The game was finished around September 1997 - about 20 months development time in total. We had a bunch of different schedules, but in the end it was just a giant sprint to the finish line. There are always problems, but nothing we couldn't overcome. And there were a lot of things we wanted to include in the game that had to be scrapped.
'For example, bridges - we wanted to give the player the ability to build and destroy them, something that's still difficult to do today, six years later.'
Despite the inclusion of Mech-style walker units, tanks, planes, ships, static gun emplacements and all the required buildings to create them. Chris felt early on in TA's development that the game lacked a certain something.'I wanted to close the gap between the player and the game.' he says. 'Rather than watch from above. I wanted to take you to the battlefield and involve you at a more personal level. That's when I thought of the Commander; the ultimate end-all unit-you.'
One of TA's true strokes of genius, the Commander was central to the game. If he died, it was game over - but he wasn't a typical desk-bound general, hidden away and protected. He could build all the basic level units in the game faster than any of the Construction bots. He could reclaim resources from the battlefield, repair, cloak and detect enemy units and walk underwater. Best of all, he was well armed and fully armoured, with the game's most powerful weapon - the D-Gun.
Willing And Able
However, in spite of their awesome capabilities, it's not the Commanders that Chris remembers most fondly from the game, but the humble KBot - the lurching, stumbling metallic foot soldiers of TA.
'They had real personality.' enthuses Chris. 'We came up with KBots just to add more alternatives for players. Some people like conventional units: others prefer ones that are more unique. Units are like toys: no matter how many you have, you get bored with them. Ergo, the more fun units you have, the less chance of falling asleep at the keyboard.'
Give The Dog A Bone
Soon after TA was released. Cavedog began releasing units for download from its website. The aim might have been to stave off player boredom, but the result was a rapidly ballooning and hugely loyal fanbase. Frequent forum visits from the Cavedog team also fed this phenomenon, as did the popularity of the 3D unit viewer released before the game.
'We felt really good about the game three-quarters of the way through development.' says Chris. 'But until the game was out there, we were never sure how people would react. In the end. the new toys including response we got was very, very positive, and it was followed up by the mods and cool strategies which were fantastic to see evolve over the years.'To be honest. I was blown away and never expected the game to take off the way it did. The multiplayer was very important for that, and after it shipped, it was even more important than we first thought. In fact, we added co-operative multiplayer because everyone was insisting that we supported team play.'
With plans for four expansion packs and a full-blown sequel already in place. Cavedog began taking steps to capitalise on the success of its debut. It quickly did with 1998's TA: The Core Contingency, an add-on that complemented TA's already massive arsenal with nearly a hundred submarines and seaplanes. Soon after its completion. Chris Taylor decided it was time to move on.
Cooking With Gas
'I left for various reasons.' says Chris. 'The biggest was my personal dream of starting my own company, and the time was right to make that happen.'
Cavedog continued regardless, but soon the free downloads began to dry up and the second expansion. TA: Battle Tactics was a disappointing addition, full of maps but lacking real substance.
Rather than begin a proper TA2, it was decided that TA's next follow-up would be a fantasy-themed RTS. The result was Total Annihilation: Kingdoms. While the game looked good and offered a range of unique units. TA: K lacked the frenetic pace of its predecessor and was plagued with performance issues. Just after its release at the end of 1999. Taylor's Gas Powered Games announced Dungeon Siege. Six months later, having cancelled the promising FPS Amen: The Awakening. Cavedog was put down by struggling publisher GT Interactive.
Live Forever
Despite its short life. Cavedog's legacy remains strong. Among its contemporaries and even against more modern games, TA remains highly playable and unique. Few games from that era. if any. can claim to have stood the test of time so well.
'It comes down to the team members who brought it all together.' concludes Chris Taylor. 'Aspects like the free flowing nature of the design, the flexible engine design which supports mods and the interface are all things I'm proud of. Also, much of the credit must go to the mod community, which kept the game fresh with all the new units, maps and Al improvements. They did an amazing job and still do. I still have a look over the TA community occasionally and it amazes me that after six years, people are still creating content for the game.'
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