ShootMania Storm is a fast-paced first-person multiplayer shooter, designed for a high level of community involvement, user-generated creations and tournament-based multiplayer.
The Basics
Players all start out with a standard rocket launcher-type weapon which fires bright orbs and which can overheat with excessive use. Additional weapons can be found scattered at spawn points throughout the map.
There are no load-outs, no inventories or skill points, and no respawn timer - you simply hit the respawn button the get back into the action.
Controls
The control system is fairly standard for a first-person PC-based shooter, albeit stripped down for accessibility: the arrow keys control character movement, the mouse controls the camera and aiming, the left mouse button fires your weapon, the right mouse button causes you to jump (and holding down the button once you've jumped causes you to glide through the air), and the enter button allows you to respawn.
Modes
Up to 60 players can connect to a server of their level simultaneously, whether for pure enjoyment or competition, allowing for what the development team call 'epic battles'. ShootMania includes fairly typical multiplayer shooter modes, including the following 8 official modes which have thus far been revealed.
Melee: Free for All
- Just as it sounds. An all out war where everyone is your enemy.
Royal: Survival Free for All
- The aim is to be the last man standing at the end of the round
Battle: Team-based Pole Capturing
- The goal is to capture your enemy team's poles or, failing that, to have the highest capture rate at the end of the timer.
BattleWaves: Variation on Battle Mode
- 15 second timers activate when a pole is being captured.
Time Attack
- The aim is to arrive at a pole on the map after having traveled through all of the checkpoints on the map as fast as possible.
Elite: 3 vs 3 Mode
- One player is equipped with a one hit kill weapon and three armor points, while three opponents have 45 seconds to kill him. If he survives, he then has 15 seconds to capture a pole or eliminate all three people on the other team
Heroes: 5 vs 5 Mode
- With the aim of one team being to capture a pole on the map, whilst the other team attempt to kill a specific member of that team.
Joust: 1 v 1 Mode
- Players have limited ammunition and have to touch one of the poles on the map in order to reload their weapons. To win a round, a player must hit his opponent a certain amount of times.
It's also possible for the community to create their own game modes using the map editing tools.
Customization
The main focus of the game is on user customization of not only the environments in which they compete, but all the way down to custom assets that a player can import into the game.
