Promising Projects

The Gamedev.net game projects listed in this showcase have shown enough promise of completion or are already complete. (In alpha order)

Infinity - The Quest for Earth: This space-based MMOG has been programmed entirely by one person, Flavien "Ysaneya" Brebion. It started as a planet renderer in late 2004. Today, it almost looks like it could give Eve-Online a run for its money. This beautiful game has artwork done by just a couple 'full-time' artists, and by a community contribution model (here is a list of all contributions up to March 2008). Progress is updated in Ysaneya's developer journal and plenty of Image of the Day entries.

Kong: Kong is a freeware top-down shooter game featuring monkeys with a thirst for blood in a full 3D environment. The rules are simple, pick up as many health/armor packs and weapons as you can before blowing your enemies into smithereens. The game currently features three game modes including deathmatch, team deathmatch and capture the flag with plans to introduce a number of new game modes. Computer controlled bots are provided as target practise but the real fun comes from playing in multiplayer over a local area network or the internet.

Malathedra: Malathedra is currently under development, is a game by EDI Games.

Morning's Wrath: Morning's Wrath is an isometric-perspective adventure game, also by EDI Games. It took the team of six developers nearly two years to complete, and has developed a strong base of fans through a developer's journal and alpha releases. The team was able to produce all of the aspects of the game in-house, including a top-notch musical score and graphics, allowing them to stay within a limited development budget. Players guide the main character, Princess Morning, through a series of locales containing tasks that require the completion of puzzles and the use of 24 magic runes to create countless spells in facing a host of enemies.

Quake2World: An open source 1st person shooter based on GPL Quake technology. The game is not yet officially released, but is entirely playable and offers a nice mix of modern technology and oldschool deathmatch fun.

Sector 13: A third-person space shooter developed by Reactor Interactive. At the time of this writing, it has not been officially published by a third party, though there are plans for a limited commercial release soon for the PC, and later, pending publisher or investor funding, Xbox 360 via Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade. It has won numerous awards and has been showcased on various Image of the Day entries and in this article.

Spectraball: This game is being developed mainly by Jonathan Davis and Ryan Berkani of Flashcube Studios. The plan is to distribute it via Steam and possibly Xbox Live Arcade.Marius Masalar is the composer for the project and is working hard on creating the ambient soundtracks for the various levels.

Urban Empires: All the programming for this urban warfare RPG has been done by one guy, Dan Green. The art is outsourced to various companies, and the game is currently in private beta and has a publisher. If you're into modern gangster/mafia-type games, check this one out for sure. You can keep up with progress and check out new screenshots in his developer's journal.

Zero Gear: Zero Gear is a kart racing game currently in development for the PC by NimbleBit. This game is especially notable due to its unique cartoon art style and interesting game mechanics. You can keep up with progress at their blog.

0 A.D.: 0 A.D. is a unique, historical real time strategy (RTS) game currently under development by Wildfire Games. Read more in this First Look interview by Jason Adams.