Every so often I find something about a new level of virtual world. The art and science of creating 3D real time virtual worlds keeps moving forward. Today I saw another demo of a coming platform for gaming.

Planet-sized video game gets its first release – 2 minute video in a short article.

Outerra's Anteword - Fly Forever

There is also an Outerra Tech Demo released! One can download and try it out for free. A torrent download is available in addition to standard downloads. File size is 219mb, a couple of minutes via Torrent.

If you are thinking of downloading it, check the video driver notes first. Be sure you can run it.

The game comes in a demo with a Demo Mode and User Mode. You need to sign up for the user mode. There are some other features you can get if you buy the Alpha version of the game.

Splash Screen

It becomes obvious Outerra is the game Engine and Anteworld is the game they are developing as they build the engine. One can buy an Alpha version of the game. The idea is to support development.

The Alpha version of the game comes with a sandbox mode. One can them build things in the world. So, it has some similarity to Second Life.

Entering the Demo one arrives in-world, in the air, over a landing strip. Pressing F1 opens a HELP screen. There is a Controls tab. In Controls you find out you can bring up Google Earth maps to see how the two compare. Pressing G pops open a small window showing Google Earth terrain, choose Map or Satellite. I’m impressed.

F8 does screen shots and F9 captures video.

WASD keys are navigation, sort of standard. A & D are strafe or side step keys rather than turns. One steers with the mouse. Shift speeds things up.

I was very much reminded of hang gliding when playing with it.

I was tempted to spend some money to see how vehicles work. But… I resisted.