Programming Games

Would you play a programming game?

  • Yes (with or without and "aide", see Q3)

    Votes: 20 95.2%
  • No

    Votes: 1 4.8%

  • Total voters
    21

pmprog

DNF (Did Not Finish)
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So, this thread has brought back some reminders of VMs, which led me down a rollercoaster ride to programming games.

I remembered this old programming game I used to play, and I managed to find it on an old CD (attached the manual in case anybody wanted to check it out, I have the full game, though I'm not sure of the legalities of distribution, as it was a commercial game, though I can barely find any references online), and was thinking about either trying to get it running on the Pandora via Qemu or Qemu/Wine, or maybe just rebuilding it.

Is anybody interested in a programming game?

czone_manual.zip
 

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So, this thread has brought back some reminders of VMs, which led me down a rollercoaster ride to programming games.

I remembered this old programming game I used to play, and I managed to find it on an old CD (attached the manual in case anybody wanted to check it out, I have the full game, though I'm not sure of the legalities of distribution, as it was a commercial game, though I can barely find any references online), and was thinking about either trying to get it running on the Pandora via Qemu or Qemu/Wine, or maybe just rebuilding it.

Is anybody interested in a programming game?
I have wanted to do a squad-based mission game with AI bots whose intelligence the user modifies as the game flows. That would rock.

D.
 
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I have wanted to do a squad-based mission game with AI bots whose intelligence the user modifies as the game flows. That would rock.
I thought about "squad based", but I decided against putting it in, I don't know why, because I like the idea. In hind sight, I've now added it.
I'm not sure how the user modifying the script in-game would work though, because unless the game ends up being turnbased, you're coding under time as well. That said, that could be equally fun, and I guess if it's sort of drag-drop coding, it might be easier/quicker to implement changes
 
I have wanted to do a squad-based mission game with AI bots whose intelligence the user modifies as the game flows. That would rock.
I thought about "squad based", but I decided against putting it in, I don't know why, because I like the idea. In hind sight, I've now added it.I'm not sure how the user modifying the script in-game would work though, because unless the game ends up being turnbased, you're coding under time as well. That said, that could be equally fun, and I guess if it's sort of drag-drop coding, it might be easier/quicker to implement changes
Drag and drop would be hard on a pandora tho
 
Drag and drop would be hard on a pandora tho
Not really, and it wouldn't have to be literally drag-drop, but rather "visual programming" as it were. Rather than typing, you're just choosing your commands.
 
I was kind of visualising two gameplay elements:

1. A radio link to your squad which allows you to issue very simple orders, such as stop combat, head for nearest terminal etc

2. Coding whilst the mission is evolving - you'd have code ready to upload when they reach a terminal that can be hacked or jacked into.

This way you have simple real-time control, with more fine-grained AI available, but not on the fly. I imagine it could be quite tense if done well.

And I have the core of a BASIC interpreter ready to go... :)

D.
 
I was kind of visualising two gameplay elements:
Sounds good, but do you see that more as a single player game? Kind of like EssoAir's comment above about cracking safes? or like a network multiplayer game?
 
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Are you looking forward to 0x10c as much as I am then?
I'm not sure, I haven't been keeping up on it (I actually forgot about it).
On the wiki page, there's this quote

However, it is unknown if there was to be a private multiplayer mode
I guess it depends, I'll have to keep tabs on the game and see where it goes
 
I like the idea and love programming games. Solving puzzles (mazes) is also a good challenge to put.

For me, the programming part has to be visual all the way, no coding or scripting.
 
Notch has cancelled 0x10c, but has gifted what he has to the community... so let's see :)

D.
 
I used to be big on Core Wars and c-robots (the granddaddy of all programming based games); there was a 'tank based' game a billions years ago, for most platforms of the time.. PC, Amiga, ST, C64, Apple 2, you name it .. Omega I think it was called. Good times.

Theres been a few entries in this genre each year, but nothing huge. I think Lego Mindstorms took it over in RL :p

I think there is an opening for a wide range of this sort of thing.. ie: mild scripting in many games (using icons to drive the coding interface say), to hardcore coding based games where you write the AI for missile control or whatever...

jeff
 
I'm vaguely reminded of an old type-in magazine listing for a game called RAM wars

tmu05-11.jpg


It doesn't emulate programming tanks or anything though, you just run your code in side a virtual machine and it attempts to crash the other programme by writing invalid opcodes into the other program. Trouble was, the programs were randomly loaded into the VM, so many algorithms used a strategy that was a search algorithm written in the shortest number of lines possible to minimise the chance of a random attack landing. Although the simplest program was a short program which placed an invalid opcode a few steps ahead of itself, then copied itself to the next memory location and repeated. It was so short that it could often ambush more complicated programs before they found it.

Taught me a lot about assembler coding (since the coding language was a simplified version an 8-bit style CPU assembler), but I'd certainly play a less abstract style of programming game these days.
 
That sounds pretty much what Corewars was.

Write little assembly routines in a well defined short VM, trying to make the other routines crash; the RAM was linear (address x....y) and cyclical, so your app only knew its relative address space (0....); so you could search forward, back, dropping bomb opcodes in, etc.

The most efficient routine was just a one liner 'worm'; it would use the copy opcode, and just copy itself to the next address, and then the address pointer would increment, and thus repeat that forever; it would slowly bomb ahead and kill everythign in its path, unless something else happened to nail it right at the right instant, to lop off the head. Classic stuff.

jeff
 
Redcode was the Corewars language indeed; sounds like a port or clone.

Thats how it was back in the day .. guys came up with a game (like rogue, dunjon/zork, etc) at university, and then peopel would clone it for home computers to try and make a buck :)

I used to really dig Omega as a kid; it was a crummy BASIC 'IDE', with built-in commands for 'scan 45 degrees' and 'drive forward' and 'rotate turret' and so on; each instruction had a cpu time cost, and every unit on the playfield used the same clock .. so if your main loop took too long, you'd be at a disadvantage; code ended up making a lot of assumptions.. scan, and then do your next moves without re-scanning and hope nothign got in the way etc, since scanning took too long. A lot of interesting strategies came out, and my brother and I dialed up huge $$ in costs to the main BBS to up/download the entries to run in tournaments. There were bots that would back into a corner and do 90-degree scans ("panda" bot code.. can't believe I recall that). Another bot code would charge into a forest if it could find one, then knock down a line of trees, then make a corner and hide at the end and just shoot over and over into the opening, on the assumption another bot would be scan/move/scan/move'ing into the tunnel, and thus this guy woudl get a few shots in before the other bot coudl even react. That guy ended up winning tournaments over and over...

Omega was pretty neat, and presented in a top-down playfield monitor; I keep thinking of firign it up, but I'm sure my eyes would bleed :)

Theres a few games inspired by it for PC over the years, in 3d and so on..

jeff
 
theres a game on ios (dunno what its called) that lets you command a mech with javascript routines. looked kinda neat, never tried it.
 
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