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Developer Preview

· 2 min read
Derpius
Derpius
Lead Developer

The Total Anarchy Sandbox developer preview is starting now!

GMan playermodel bust over a missing texture floor

Read more to see how to join and what to expect from the first closed testing phase.

Can I take part?​

For this first phase we're looking for Lua developers to build games and addons, and to collaborate on designing the Lua API. We're also looking for C++ developers to help build the TASBox engine and implement the Lua API.

You don't need to be an expert in either language, and there's no expectations of time commitment (you won't lose access for inactivity).

How do I join?​

Join the Total Anarchy Servers Discord here and post a link to your GitHub in the #tasbox project channel. A brief description of your experience and what you're planning to do is ideal but not required.

If added to the preview, you'll be invited to https://github.com/TAServers and will have read-only access to https://github.com/TAServers/TASBox. If you know C++ and want to work on the engine, you'll be added to a team with write access instead.

important

Please do not share the code or builds.

TASbox will be free and open source on release, but until then we don't want people to get bad first impressions from an unfinished game.

You are allowed (and encouraged) to make your games/addons public, as well any screenshots or videos!

What can I expect?​

It's still early days for TASbox - only ~7 months of active development at the time of writing - so not too much right now.

As it stands we have the following core functionalities:

  • Game and Addon loading system (collectively referred to as Packages)
  • Luau scripting environment with sandboxing
  • Support for Source 1 assets, including mostly-stable ragdolls and mounting games from a user's Steam library
  • PhysX 5 with support for the PhysX Visual Debugger on debug builds (can connect from Lua)
  • Basic Vulkan renderer with skeletal meshes and textures
  • A number of core Lua APIs implemented, including but not limited to:
    • Reading user input
    • Sandboxing code
    • Listening to events (tick, button presses, etc.)
    • Basic interactions with entities (create, destroy, get/set a subset of components, custom components)

We're looking forward to building the rest of TASBox together with you!