Triplane Turmoil series - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Triplane Turmoil

Triplane Turmoil is a sidescrolling flying game by Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

Dodekaedron Software released in 1996. It was originally released as shareware

Shareware

The term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...

, but is now freeware

Freeware

Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...

. The game was inspired by the computer game Sopwith
Sopwith (computer game)
Sopwith is a sidescrolling shoot 'em up created by David L. Clark of BMB Compuscience in 1984. It was originally written to run on the IBM PC under DOS but there was also a port made near the time of its creation for the Atari 520ST. More recent versions have been ported to even more systems...

and received a sequel, Triplane Turmoil 2, in late 2006. Original game has been ported to SDL and runs on Linux & Windows. The port has been renamed as Triplane Classic. The source code is available under GPL from sourceforge. Also, a Spanish game developer called Sergio Padrino created an unifinished remake of the multiplayer game mode from Triplane Turmoil with only one map but some other extras (like different abilities). This remake is called Triplane 3D.

The game features four nations: Finland

Finland

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. Each nation has a single player campaign. There are also multiplayer levels which can be played with human or computer controlled pilots. The countries' planes differ from each other in terms of speed, maneuverability, bomb load capacity, endurance, ammunition capacity and fuel capacity.

Story

The world of Triplane Turmoil appears to be set during or some time after the First World War

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, possibly in the mid-1920s, given the fact that triplanes still have nose-mounted machine guns using interrupter gear

Interrupter gear

An interrupter gear is a device used on military aircraft and warships in order to allow them to target opponents without damaging themselves....

, and appear to be capable of carrying and releasing fairly heavy ordnance. Furthermore, respirators do not appear to be in use.

The current state of affairs is that there are 4 major feuding powers: England; Finland; Germany; and Japan. The diplomatic relationships between these powers appear strained and the powers themselves fickle; the single-player campaigns all revolve around a series of rapidly shifting alliances and preemptive strikes.

Gameplay

Players may control their aircraft by pitching up, down, rolling the aircraft 180 degrees, fire the machine gun and dropping bombs. The aircraft can be controlled through the keyboard or a joystick.

The aircraft have 3 potential weapons: Their machine gun, their bombs, in both a ground-attack role and as a primitive air-to-air missile, and, if certain game parameters allow it, the chassis of the aircraft itself in a kamikaze attack. Bombs will destroy an aircraft instantly, whereas bullets deal a random amount of damage. The durability of an aircraft depends on its country of origin: Japanese craft are very lightly armored and only take a few bullets to bring down, whereas a Finnish airplane can take a rather large amount of damage before being destroyed. Damage is indicated by smoke trails.

Each faction generally starts from an airfield consisting of a bomb-proof hangar and runway, a small garrison of infantry, and turrets, towers and tents. The towers and tents have no gameplay effect, however in Single Player they often are objectives to bomb or prevent from being bombed, however, this is not always the case. The hangar and runway is where the aircraft emerges, and also where it can land for repairs, refueling and reloading. Infantry provide weak anti-aircraft

Anti-aircraft warfare

NATO defines air defence as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action." They include ground and air based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements and passive measures. It may be to protect naval, ground and air forces...

fire, but a large mass of them (6 or so) can be a threat to most aircraft.
The turrets consist of two types: Anti-aircraft Machine Gun (AAMG) and Anti-aircraft Artillery (AAA or Flak).

Flak turrets are slow to fire, but have a high ceiling and are accurate. They fire a red, incendiary projectile that bursts at a certain altitude. If an aircraft suffers a solid hit from an AAA shell, it will burst into flames and spiral to earth, or possibly explode in midair. Even if the aircraft is only grazed, it will likely begin to smoke heavily, indicating severe damage. A sure-fire way to avoid flak fire is to fly very low; depending on the elevation of the turret and the angle of the gun, the shell may be able to go higher than the operating ceiling of the target.

Machine Gun turrets have a relatively low ceiling, given a turret at a reasonable elevation, an aircraft would likely be able to fly above the bullets unscathed. They are quick to fire, sending up bursts of 5 bullets at a faster rate than aircraft machine guns at quick, regular intervals. Depending on the aircraft being targeted, anywhere from 1 to 4 bursts will do in an unwary pilot.

If a pilot flies too high, the air becomes too thin and they will faint. This causes the aircraft to spiral to the ground, but by pressing either "up" or "down" key, one may manage to slow down enough to have time to wake up and regain control before crashing. This ceiling is indicated by the top of each of the 3 segments in VESA SVGA mode, or the top of the player's screen when it refuses to move up any more in VGA mode, or the top of the screen in Single Player.

Single player

In single player, the player generally has a number of planes at their disposal. Each mission has a set of objectives, generally to bomb a certain target or prevent something from being bombed, but the player can also expect to fly reconnaissance missions and similar, less standard missions.

Each country has a 6-stage campaign, consisting of a linear storyline where the world situation changes depending on the objectives and situation of the previous mission. Invariably, the player's country's Air Force command or its diplomats will make a serious blunder, causing the 3 other powers to ally against the player and launch an all-out aerial assault. Thus, the final mission in any campaign is a last stand against overwhelming odds. Only skilled pilots can hope to succeed.

An indicator provides information about the enemy's altitude and relative distance.

Multiplayer

In multiplayer mode, anywhere from 2 to 4 factions are active at a time, depending on the number of humans and computer players activated. There is no network multiplayer; all humans must use the same machine simultaneously, using the keyboard and up to 2 joysticks.

Combat takes place on one of 6 maps, and either 2-on-2 alliances are enabled or the game is a free-for-all. Depending on preferences, there may be turrets and infantry. Tents and towers often feature, but have no game significance, rather, they are something to practice on.

There is no story to the multiplayer mode, and the makeup of any active alliances determine whether 2 allies share one side of the map, or whether players' bases are next to their enemies.

There are 2 video modes to choose from for multiplayer, the regular VGA

Video Graphics Array

Video Graphics Array refers specifically to the display hardware first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, but through its widespread adoption has also come to mean either an analog computer display standard, the 15-pin D-subminiature VGA connector or the 640×480 resolution...

, in essence 4 single-player screens with the addition of a horizontal indicator on each screen, or VESA

VESA

VESA is an international standards body for computer graphics founded in 1989 by NEC Home Electronics and eight other video display adapter manufacturers.VESA's initial goal was to produce a standard for 800×600 SVGA resolution video displays...

SVGA

Super Video Graphics Array

Super Video Graphics Array or Ultra Video Graphics Array, almost always abbreviated to Super VGA, Ultra VGA or just SVGA or UVGA is a broad term that covers a wide range of computer display standards....

, a faster mode in which the entire map is displayed in 3 bars running across the screen, affording a view of all other planes and all of the terrain.

Triplane Turmoil II

Triplane Turmoil 2 is a Finnish

Finland

indie game developed by Draconus Entertainment

Draconus Entertainment

Draconus Entertainment is a Finnish computer game developer and publisher based in Vantaa, Finland.-Games by Draconus:*The Butler Did It! - PC *Triplane Turmoil 2 - PC -External links:**...

Ltd. It was released in 2006, being distributed over the internet. Shortly thereafter the game has experienced a limited release in retail stores as well. Among other things it features 3D graphics with traditional 2D gameplay, and there is supposed to be heavy emphasis on online multiplayer combat. The initial release, however, did not contain the online multiplayer game.

Overview

The game is a sequel to the Finnish shareware game Triplane Turmoil, which was released in 1996, albeit only one member of the original team was involved in the creation of the new game. It is a side-scrolling flying game loosely based on World War I

World War I

.

In the game six nations (Finland

Finland

, Germany

Germany

, Japan

Japan

, Great-Britain, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

) fight for dominance over each other. Each nation has a six-mission long single player campaign. In addition, the game includes over 30 multiplayer maps, some of which are suitable for 36 players while others are intended for less.

Triplane Turmoil II

Other

Triplane 3D

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