nTrap-ment

Austrian-based developer AGD Software is currently hard at work on a new sci-fi action game called nTrap, which will put you behind the controls of a range of hi-tech vehicles, from submarines and hovercraft to fighter jets and space craft. As an nTrapper in the Earth Defense Corps, it is up to you to steal information, recover lost technology, intercept industrial spies and capture fugitives in the name of your planet. And with all of that vital information encoded in the bodies of living beings, you will have to use customisable weapons and "network trapping" devices to catch your quarry intact rather than reducing them to their constituent parts, which should put a different spin on things.

The game is powered by AGD's own Magrethea engine, a modular system which features some impressive real-time physics, deformable architecture and terrain, fractal and curved surfaces, all manner of fancy lighting effects, and 3D positional audio. You can find out more on the AGD website, which includes several short (DivX encoded) video clips of some of the engine's main features in action. Some of these videos are more interesting for programmers than gamers probably, but they're well worth a look if you want to see what all the jargon means in practice.

In the meantime, AGD were good enough to supply us with five exclusive screenshots of nTrap and the Magrethea engine in action.