ThinkTank City

ThinkTanks, also called TT, is an online multiplayer third-person shooter available for Microsoft Windows, Mac, and Linux. It was developed by BraveTree Productions and marketed by GarageGames and Shockwave.com. It has numerous fan sites, mostly hosted by FreeWebs.com, among which Planet ThinkTanks is considered "home" for most players (also called "ThinkTankers" or "TTers").

Gameplay Info
The plotline is a bit unusual: Aliens from "Alien Mind Control" have kidnapped human soldiers and put their brains into tanks. Then, they set the tanks on replicas of Earth terrains and watch them fight for their own sadistic amusement. The player has a mutation that lets him/her resist their mind control, and has to get off the alien planet.

There are 3 single-player game modes: in Solo play, the player has to beat level after level, rotating through Lush, Spooky, and Frantic maps with progressively harder bots to fight. A boss level occurs every 4 levels. Target Practice pits a player against an army of disarmed bots to test his/her aim. Quick Play causes a quick match on any map between the player and 6 bots in "indie" battlemode- anything that moves is a target.

The heart of the game lies in its online mode. It allows the player to join one of several servers, hosted by either Shockwave.com or another player, and compete against a mixture of humans and bots. Several game types are available:

-Battlemode: Anything that moves is a target.

-Team Battlemode: Same as Battlemode, except there are teams.

-"Indie" Scrum: The object is to get the "scrum ball" into the pulsating green goal- by yourself, with everyone else trying to do the same thing. You have to get away from all the rest trying to do the same thing killing you not easy is it? -Team Scrum: Same as Indie Scrum, except 2 teams are trying to beat each other.

The Community
ThinkTanks is a game as well as a community of people. The List of ThinkTanks players can be found on Wikipedia. In fact, people have argued that ThinkTanks depends even more on its community at Planet ThinkTanks than the developers at BraveTree Productions and GarageGames to stay current and active.2 To keep the community in top shape, there is a code of conduct that players are expected to follow. If a player becomes an annoyance, he/she may be silenced on PlanetThinkTanks and/or be banned from online servers by moderators and administrators.

Independent of GarageGames, fans of the game can host their own servers. Most are patrolled by elected moderators with administrative controls granted to them to make the game more enjoyable for others. Most of these servers are reliably online and kept up-to-date with new or popular maps. Finally, with a script by ScriptLine, users can bypass the master server and join other servers by their IP adresses, increasing their independence from GarageGames. 1

There are Team Battlemode and Team Scrum leagues which players can sign up for and participate in on the Planet ThinkTanks online forum. Popular leagues include the Team Battle Mode League (TBML) and the Psychoscrum League (PSL) which has been in existence nearly as long as the game itself.

Modding
Thanks to a release of some of the source code, players with some skill at scripting can even make their own. Such gametypes include Soccer, Survivor, Capture the Flag, and Racing. It is also possible to make custom bots. Some players have even created totally new maps using new textures and new objects, such as buildings, roads and ramps. Whole new terrains are possible using GarageGames's Torque Game Engine, and basic objects can easily be placed using a script called ModWizard. There are now 140+ available maps, only 12 of which shipped with the original game.

TT is a very easy application to modify. The tank, projectile, environment and even sky skins are all simple to customize via image editing applications capable of reading JPG and PNG formats. Through Planet ThinkTanks, you can always get new skins to add to your collection from the PTT forum, where an entire section is dedicated to game modification. You may post you own skins as well.

Thinktanks also uses a simple programming language created for Torque Game Engine from www.garagegames.com. Scriptors in the community are dedicated to making it a better place, adding gametypes and other things, like creating/editing admin scripts. The language is easy to learn if you have been in contact with another programming language.(like C++). With C++ style syntax, you can start to create scripts in a matter of months. Open-source scripts available from the community has leveled off the learning curve for many. Through scripting, users can create almost everything from simple client-side scripts ( eg. those tell you the time left in the round) to complicated server side scripts (e.g. an Admin Script)

Armies
Many members have taken to creating or joining "armies" or "clans" (groups of friends and/or allies in ThinkTanks) with their online friends. Here is a List of TT Armies that are currently active and no longer in existence. Battles and practices online between armies occur almost every weekend, and the armies serve their purpose by providing a "family" of other members that are always around. Planet ThinkTanks has recognized armies and created a whole forum dedicated to the organization of armies and clans. There is a variety of armies to choose from today, each with its own chain of command. Any player can start their own army or clan, or join one with the possibility of someday rising to become leader of an army or clan. This spawns its own culture. Since any random person can start one, several more seasoned players look down on "armies" because of the experience it takes to make a successful army. Many people who create a new army fail, and the army fades away.

ThinkTanks is also availible for purchase on Microsoft's Xbox home game console. A person with an XBox Live account can order an "XBox Live Arcade" CD from Microsoft, put it in his/her XBox, sign in with an XBox live account, and purchase the game and download it.

A downloadable demo is available from GarageGames [see below].

Internal Links
List of ThinkTanks players

List of TT Armies