Total Anarchy

Right! Before you read on I just need to make a few things clear:

• Total Anarchy is free. It will always be free. It is freeware!
• It’s not quite finished yet, the current version is a (rather unstable) beta.
• Windows only I’m afraid, but as GM8 is now available on Mac there’s a possibility I might be able to port this in the future. This will be once the Windows version is complete, and if there is enough demand for me to spend time trying to get a Mac port up and running.
• Single Player only! I have no experience making MP games either, I don’t even play them that much.
• I am not adding zombies to this game. What is your recent obsession with zombies anyway?
• I’m not giving the engine out, no matter how politely you ask me.
• Unless you are making something totally awesome and mind-blowing, I’m not joining your ‘team’ either.

What is Total Anarchy?

Total Anarchy is the result of me liking the GTA series quite a bit. Back in high school I got myself a copy of Game Maker and made a couple of really poor quality GTA-clones. One of which is still available.

Total Anarchy itself is a project that goes right back to 2006. It started off as a very basic project that was intended to be released after about six months of development. The release date has been continuously pushed back every few months as I am forever changing things, adding stuff and encountering new problems as a result.

By the end of 2009, Total Anarchy has been set in four different cities, had three different protagonists, several hundred different radio stations, thousands of vehicles and about five different time-frames. Only then, after three years of development, did I settle on a 2029 setting in ‘New Verago.’

So when is it going to be finished? The last thing I released was the beta back in March. It has brought up some important new issues, such as that infamous loading bug where all the lamp posts turn into what look like steel houses and none of the sounds work properly. I cried myself to sleep after finding out I just released something this buggy. Still, it’s good to get bug reports from different users because issues are brought up that I wouldn’t be able to otherwise counter. Since the beta, I have fixed the majority of the reported bugs and made the engine a whole lot more stable. I thought about releasing a patch for the beta but it would involve asking you all to download the entire thing again (all 50MB of it) and then tell you that another release is imminent which will make that version obsolete too!

No dudes, I’m making you wait until the final thing now! All I have to do is make the edges a bit smoother and get the rest of the story missions ready. I’ve already scripted the whole thing, so it’s not a huge amount of work to go. Unfortunately, this has proven to be an extremely busy year. I’ve had A-levels followed by mountains of university coursework. I’ve had a job too in order to stay alive. I also like to retain some remnants of my social life by knocking around in pubs and clubs during what’s left of my spare time. There’s also political canvassing and demonstrations which I like to get involved in now that my country is in a state of disrepair. Furthermore, as a musician I’ve been playing in numerous gigs, organising stuff and even teaching lessons. Simply put, I’m really fucking busy these days!

So please, stay patient. The game is coming, and it’ll be finished when it’s finished. I don’t want to release another shoddy, bug ridden and underwhelming product. I want something I can look back upon in five years time and be glad that it was released and played by you then.

In the meantime, please try out the beta if you haven’t already. Feel free to comment on any bugs that I may have overlooked. I’m still open to the odd suggestion, but as the project is drawing to a close I can’t just ‘jam zombies in there,’ suddenly set it in the 1980s or magically turn it into an MMORPG.

You can also view some discussion in the forum topic here.

Lastly, thanks for your time and patience. While the above is rather blunt about the game’s situation, it isn’t your fault that it’s taking a long time and as a developer I need to thank you for trying and testing my product. It’s my aim that I can create something that you will all enjoy. It’s become a huge project and it’s become quite rewarding at times – after I published the game on facebook some of my friends were quite surprised that I had this random game up my sleeve! I’m also aware of the reviews on Gamespot and in other reviewing sites and magazines – and this is only after a beta I published on a handful of sites. Either way, the project is still alive and I don’t intend to abandon it any time soon.