Pristine is the name I’ve given to the prototype for a space combat simulator written in ActionScript3 using Papervision3D. The name is derived from the spotless condition of Capt. Kara Thrace’s (Starbuck) Viper MKII after her mysterious return to the fleet. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, that’s ok!

This project started because I got really fired up about making a desktop-quality game in a browser. Due to the penetration of the Flash Player and the recent performance Papervision3D has been seeing, Flash seems possible. Unity3D seems like a great choice, but they don’t offer an educational license (aka FREE) akin to Flex Builder, and I am a poor student. I put in an enquiry about a free educational license; we’ll see what happens.

I’m currently on the second iteration of this project. The first incarnation was fairly well along, when I had to put the code down due to other commitments. When I picked it back up, I decided to take what I’d learned and try to make it better. The first version was very procedural. While yielding good performance, it definitely made code maintenance difficult. This version can be viewed in the 1.0 tag on google code. It also has a glitch, where your projectiles are not fired from the right spot while “gliding”. Check out the tag 1.0 page for some more info, like controls, features, etc.

The current trunk code is the second iteration, and is progressing nicely.