BZFlag

The number of contributors to the project has steadily increased over time. The project invites all sufficiently experienced developers to contribute. Though there are currently 64 listed developers, a much smaller number of those are active contributors.

Developers are able to edit any of the project's files to make changes at any time. However, when a developer has made an edit of which other developers do not approve, or is inappropriate for the game, they are requested to revert to the previous version of the file; most developers monitor source edits on IRC.

The copyright holder for the game is Tim Riker but maintenance is guided by Scott Wichser and Jeff Makey as project managers. The game's original author, Chris Schoeneman, is no longer involved in development.[5]

Tanks can join as one of the four team colors, as a rogue, or as an observer. Observers cannot play, but can move anywhere in the world and watch what the tank they are linked to is doing. Observers do not have a tank and are therefore not visible to players, but are shown in the scoreboard. The colored teams are Red, Green, Blue and Purple. Rogue players are teamless players: they are allowed to kill colored team players and other rogues. Rogue tanks are colored dark grey out the window, and yellow on the radar.

In rabbit-hunt games there is a white tank, known as the "rabbit", against the orange-brown "hunters", or every other player. The hunters are considered a team, so rabbits with genocide, shockwave, Guided Missile, or Laser flags are dangerous, and often team kills occur due to a group assault on the "rabbit."

Teams are necessary in capture-the-flag games, in which they have to protect their team flag from capture. Because rogues are occasionally allowed on servers, a rogue tank does not have any flag to defend, and in turn cannot capture flags. However, rogues usually tend to aid other teams of choice, or merely enjoy adding a distraction to all teams. There is a plugin to prevent this, however it is only used on servers with two large teams and one or two rogue players.[7]

A screenshot of BZFlag 2.4.6 client visiting a Ducati map with snow and mirror effect.

A BZFlag server can be configured to create a basic, random map for play, or users can load custom map files. BZFlag uses a customized text based map format to define the placement of objects. While writing a map is fairly simple in this format, most map-makers use a 3d modeling program such as Wings 3D or blender. Graphical map editors, BZEdit or iBZEdit have also been used. Note that BZEdit is not distributed with the game, and is no longer under active development (versions of it are available at the BZFlag SourceForge.net site). However, using blender in combination with a BZFlag map plug-in is currently the most popular mapping method.

As to the simplicity of maps, there are a number of basic objects in a map: boxes, pyramids, teleporters, cones, arcs, cylinders, spheres, team bases and meshes. Teleporters are rectangular, yellow-bordered objects that teleport a tank to another teleporter. A mapmaker may choose to not have a teleporter teleport tanks by leaving out links, or simple definitions of two points for teleporters to link between. Teleporters are also capable of teleporting to themselves, reflecting bullets and tanks that enter. Team Bases are used for CTF style games. Full three dimensional meshes have been available in maps since the 2.0 release.

In observer mode as a green tank and a rogue tank battle against each other. The rogue clearly destroys the green tank as the rogue has Guided Missiles. Taken from low-resolution mode in version 2.0

BZFlag has three types of flags: team flags, bad flags and super flags.[8] Team flags are only placed in a world during a capture-the-flag game, and represent the team it is colored to. Super flags are flags that can be in both free-for-all games and capture-the-flag games, but are strongly controlled by a server operator. The number, types of super flags, as well as where they are placed can all be controlled by the operator. Super flags come in both bad and good form, and affect a tank accordingly. A bad flag may take away a certain sense of the tank: its sight, speed, or related things, while a good flag does the opposite and actually helps a tank. Good super flags are usually held until the tank is killed and explodes, or until the player driving the tank chooses to drop the flag. Bad flags are dropped after a short amount of time, after a certain number of "wins", or until the tank dies. The rules for dropping bad flags are set by the operator. All super flags have a one or two letter code that is displayed next to a player's name on the scoreboard when that player has that flag. Once in a while, a new flag is introduced, which anyone can contribute to via developer contact or the wiki.[7]

The player fires a Guided Missile at a ground target while the opposing green team's flag is taken from their base, all while a tank has exploded slightly below.

Servers have environments that simulate the real world. A server's environment consists of three things: The map in play, the time of day that is being simulated, and weather conditions, introducing elements of which players have no control, like rain, snow, icy and/or slippery ground, modified friction and gravity, and fog. BZFlag takes the local time from the geographical location of the server and creates a night or day-time atmosphere in the background. Servers may synchronize the local server time or allow players to change the time to any time they may desire.