History of Bitfighter
Summary
Bitfighter is the successor to Zap!, a shareware game created by GarageGames. Development of Zap! took place in 2004, with a limited release in late 2004 and a public release in early 2005. Zap! included a free demo, which limited multiplayer gameplay and weapon/module usage. Zap! could be purchased for $15-20.
Initially, Zap! was praised and active, but this soon changed for the worse. Zap! would receive little development or support from GarageGames over the next few years.
In 2007 GarageGames launched InstantAction, which was designed to bring high quality games to an Internet browser. InstantAction released a few new games and a few revivals of old titles. One of those revivals was Z.A.P: Zero All Productivity, launched in early 2008.
In 2009 (September?) the Zap! master server was shut down and support was officially discontinued.
The Bitfighter project was started by a few community members, fans of Zap!, around early 2008. Much of the community base switched over to Bitfighter instead of Z.A.P. Many community members disliked Z.A.P, mainly citing bad graphics.
Timeline
- January 5, 2005 - Zap! released by GarageGames
- January 2008 - Z.A.P released for InstantAction
- January 16, 2008 - Bitfighter v001 released, Windows only
- June 27, 2008 - Bitfighter v009 released, includes Mac support
- November 13, 2009 - Bitfighter 011a released, includes Linux support
Zap! Credits
[As seen in the credits line of Zap! and its readme file]
- Mark Frohnmayer - Lead programmer, Designer, Community server
- Ben Garney - Programmer, Bots, Sound Effects
- Pat Wilson - Programmer
- Robert Blanchet, Chris Weiland - Programmers
- Josh Williams - Mac Port
- John Quigley - Linux Port
- Jay Moore, Alex Swanson, Brian 'Camper Ramage, Tim Aste, Benjamin Bradley - Testers
- Joe Maruschak, Clark Fagot, Matt Fairfax, John Quigley - Testers from Bravetree
- Jay Moore, Ben Bradley - Publicity
