Hey dudes!
My name is Ben and after 6 years of development I have finally finished my first ever game. It's a free online shooter called Mutant Factions and I want to share it with you 
To get a quick idea of the gameplay check out the latest youtube trailer here:
To get a quick idea of the gameplay check out the latest youtube trailer here:Inspiration
If I were to describe Mutant Factions it would be a mix of these 3 games:
-GTA2 for the vehicles, explosions and top-down view.
-Counter-Strike for the tactical online PvP combat.
-Diablo for the complex skills system.
Blowing up a vehicle roadblock to kill zombies.
Game Overview
Mutant Factions is a free online shooter. It has over 30 weapons and vehicles; classic game modes like Capture the Flag, Free For All and Zombie Co-op; ranked servers for competitive players; unlockable player cosmetics; and an inbuilt map editor. Easily the most important part of the game however is the skills system. Mutant Factions mixes modern weaponry with an RPG skills system to create all sorts of crazy and interesting combat situations. You can unlock Invisibility, sneak up on someone and then blast them in the face with a shotgun. Or you can unlock Phasic Bullets to make your sniper bullets bounce around corrners. There are currently 33 skills in the game and it's this combination of weapons and skills that gives Mutant Factions hundreds of hours of replayability. You will explore countless skill builds, counters and combos as you kill enemies and level up your mutant.
Two players using skills against eachother in PvP combat.
Key Features
-33 skills divided over 3 skill trees. Each skill has been uniquely balanced by having both a benefit AND a penalty. This is key and what makes this game so unique. In earlier versions skills only provided benefits, but this made the game horribly unfair for new players. 3 years and 20 versions later, the skills have been rebalanced to provide unique penalties as well. This means that a brand new level 10 player can defeat a level 100 player by exploiting his weaknesses. The end result is you have a game that you can quickly jump into and start killing in minutes, while still being able to progress your character, explore awesome skill builds and not put anyone at an unfair advantage. An example of a skill might be Blade Fury which does lots of slashing damage to nearby enemies, but makes your bullets less accurate. Good players will know when to cast the skill and when not to based on the situation at hand. Another example is Vampirism, which makes you regain health as you damage enemies but also reduces the damage your bullets deal. Lots of skills to explore and experiment with!
-Over 30 uniquely balanced vehicles and weapons. A lot of versions have been released for Mutant Factions during it's beta stage to iron out all the balance issues. Finally the game is in a state where combat is nice and balanced and players must spend or save their cash wisely to choose the best weapon at the time. For example, shotguns are great up close, rifles are great at range, and machine guns are great against vehicles.
-Ranked servers have recently been added to the game to satisfy the needs of more competitive players. By joining a ranked server you are committed to a match, similar to DOTA2 or CS:GO. At the end of the round your rank will be shifted by how you score against your enemies. The ranking system is based on the Elo rating system used in chess and provides a fairly accurate representation of a players skill level. Very addictive and provides a great goal for those who want to improve their skills and master the game.
-An inbuilt map editor allows community members to create maps. As a result there are countless user-generated maps and plenty of variety. Map makers are also awarded these things called "community credits" which they can use to unlock sexy cosmetics and show off their support. The cosmetics have no impact on gameplay but look pretty swish. Stuff like capes, lightsabers, vehicle decals, etc... hat unlocks are planned but not in the game just yet ;)
- A variety of PvP and PvE game modes. The most recent addition is Outbreak which is a PvE zombie slaughtering game mode. This game mode is a great way to practice as you can learn how the skills work against zombies. The zombie difficulty will scale up and down based on your performance in game to keep a constant challenge. The skills work amazing against the zombies too and make you feel like a god as you destroy them!
A roadster narrowly avoiding a stinger missile.
About the Game
Mutant Factions has been in development for over 6 years and was officially finished and released as version 1.0 a few days ago! It's a very exciting time for the game and a great time to start playing! The playerbase is a little small at the moment, but it's a friendly community and we would love to have some more players come visit. The game gets exponentially more fun as more players join the server as the chaos ramps up and up, so the more the merrier! The game itself was coded from scratch in C++ and uses OpenGL for graphics. It is available for both Windows and Linux.
Slaughtering zombies in Outbreak.
Download Now
The game is 100% free and only 28MB to download, so how about we all hop on and play a game together!
Official Site: http://mutantfactions.net/
Free Download (28MB): http://mutantfactions.net/downloads/MutantFactionsSetup.exe
Cheers,
Ben.
