Logic Warz - Program your own Bot, battle other people's Bots

[logicwarz]

Hello Everyone.

I've just launched a new game which I think some of you might be interested in, especially those into Artificial Intelligence and programming in general.
It's a free game\program where you program and customize your own automated Battle Bot and pit it against other people's Bot in a fight to the death.

Features:

- Program your Bot in any language you feel comfortable with
- Develop complex tactics and a large variety of fighting styles
- Flash-based Desktop and Browser versions
- Full 3D with the ability to customize the look of the Bot
- Save and watch replays of any match
- Unlimited number of Bots in a match
- Participate in the Official Logic Warz Competition, or start your own
- Completely, 100%, FREE

If any of this sounds interesting, check out the website, you'll be able to get a taste of a match in the built-in replay player even before you decide to download.

http://www.logicwarz.com

[ultifinitus]

Niiiice!! I was going to make a game quite similar a while back, way to be!

[firedraco]

Sounds awesome. I might try it out today if I don't get distracted with other stuff.

[Computergeek01]

It would make it easier for new programmers if instead of requiring them to read from and write to variable file names, you started their executable each turn with an argument that contained the turn number they are on. Or if you just eliminated the turn numbers altogether and allowed us (the players) to call in functions from shared resources. The only reason I could see for keeping the commands from previous turns is for battle reports after the match which you could gather on your own.

As I am NOT a new programmer this doesn't really apply to me so I'm definatly going to check this out!

[Computergeek01]

@ ultifinitus: I haven't tried the OP's game yet, but from reading what I have of the "PROGRAM IT" section we (the people at this site) can do SO MUCH BETTER! This is a great inspiration but I think I have a project for the day. If you get into something again let me know. EDIT: I will be trying the OPs game to see how it goes.

I feel really bad though, I was already into a project with webJose writing up a physics library... Maybe this will be the distraction I need to get me back on track over there though.

[chrisname]

This physics library sounds interesting. Any chance I could get involved?

[Computergeek01]

I don't have a problem with it: http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/general/42889/

We aren't even settled on a standard yet, there's a few bugs because of that. But we're less then a full week in.


EDIT: The premise the OP had has a lot of potential but the execution is rushed. I'm going to start on something like this myself. The 3-D might be a little while off but I simply cannot stand the way this project passes information to and from the units.

[ultifinitus]

I haven't tried the OP's game yet, but from reading what I have of the "PROGRAM IT" section we (the people at this site) can do SO MUCH BETTER! This is a great inspiration but I think I have a project for the day. If you get into something again let me know. EDIT: I will be trying the OPs game to see how it goes.

I agree! I'll get started today, it's the first day I've had free since I updated my youtube video.... I have absolutely no problem with the graphics part, however the custom interpreter would be fairly difficult. However I've been learning inline asm. With asm interpretation is a fairly simple swap of code and some jmps... Hmmm I can see a custom interpreted language coming from this =]

What I was thinking for the game was having different premade code "modules" that you could attach to bots. Basically things like a scout module, an archer module, a knight module, etc. Some of the basic ideas of the game: The bot does not make his moves for the current turn, he plans X turns in advanced, based on the level of the game. The first X moves are hard coded (user defined). The modules can poll for certain info, like the current position of enemies, the current positions of map traps, velocity of enemies, and it innately knows it's own pos/vel/jmp pwr/fuel level/etc. When the game progresses, or if you want to battle multiplayer style, there are completely blank modules to create your own AI. You bring a certain army into battle. The smaller the army/ more risk, gains more reward. So if you destroy an army of 3x your size, you'll gain 3! * score in reward. With the extra cash you can buy expensive AI modules, more powerful weapons for your units, more units(not sure if you can share AI modules), and such.

I was thinking for a main premise behind the game something like: you're a programmer, and the world has been overrun with robots not following Asmov's law. SO you decide to make you're own army to get rid of these horrifying robots. I was also thinking that the overworld would be made up of a 2-d sidescroller, with puzzles between rounds and simple action levels. And actually during battle, I'm thinking that some custom commands would be absolutely amazing, or perhaps you're able to remote control one of your robots. IDK, there're a ton of different methods that could be used here.

The graphics: I much prefer two dimensional. I can make the art of the whole game. The "minions" especially =D

The X moves ahead aspect is where this game will really get interesting to program AI. you could have something super simple like,

//MAIN LOOP STARTS HERE
poll:  main: for nearest enemy: store in :: toattack;
//you can poll main, for basically everything. you can also poll other objects.

while(toattack.lives()){
   if (mypos + myvel.x * 3 ~~ toattack.position){ //the ~~ means collides with
      useweapon();
   }
   else{
      move_towards(toattack);
   }
}
//MAIN LOOP ENDS HERE 

Then expand from there.

What do you think? Good idea/Bad idea?

[Computergeek01]

Actually could we avoid asm? GCC says right on their web site that it cannot parse it correctly. Why do you think you need it?

EDIT AFTER READING ENTIRE POST: ... Did you just come up with that on the spot or did you have this idea chambered?

[Computergeek01]

The idea of using build in modules sound like what I'm trying for. Right now I'm working on the core of the game (SFML) so I haven't gotten far enough to address that part yet.

[ultifinitus]

@computergeek: I've had the idea for quite a while. Some particulars I came up with on the spot =] however the majority has been floating around.

I don't think we need ASM, however I'd been learning it and learned the (relative) ease of which an interpreted language could be created, that's all I was referring to.

Do you not want to have custom modules at all?

[Computergeek01]

If we want players to be able to use custom modules then we make them virtual in the base class right? EDIT: I'm all for custom modules, that to me will be a huge part of this game.

[Albatross]

I'll look into it after my computer's GPU finally falls apart, unless there's native OS X support for it? That was in reference to the game the OP posted.

In reference to the current topic (heh heh...), I'll be quite interested to see how this turns out!

-Albatross

[ultifinitus]

Alby: how did you make your language? Was it a wrapper for c/c++? Or are you actually compiling into machine code?

[Albatross]

I'm compiling it to machine code, with LLVM IR as a... well... IR. >_>

-Albatross

[ultifinitus]

o.O

[logicwarz]

Hi Everyone.

Sorry it took me a while to post again.

First of all, thanks for everyone who have shown interest in my game, If you'd like to participate, I'd be happy to hear your comments in the Logic Warz Forum on the site: http://www.logicwarz.com/forum/

Secondly, I'm honored that my game inspired some of you to make your own project, I wish you luck with it and would be happy if you could drop by the Logic Warz Forum and PM me (Roy Lazarovich) with a link to the new project, I'd be happy to see this idea take form even if it's not my own doing, having said that, there is no reason why both projects can't co-exist and you are all welcome.

http://www.logicwarz.com/

[S6k9GNh0]

Downloading and testing it out now :D

EDIT: I had this idea awhile back about a master server that would serve multiple bots based on values received and sent (as I was just then conceiving the concept of the server/client). You'd have something like Turbo Warz, except via a 100x100x100 grid along with environmental objects such as blocks of dirt or something. The design allowed any language that you could connect to the server through TCP sockets. I actually started implementing this but it was incredibly complex, especially since I was new to programming at the time. I think I'll try and work on that again. A ping-less truly logical game. The design I had allowed SUPER complex bots (for instance, you have to control the direction you are firing, when to dodge, etc. while you also handle your bots statistics, etc. meaning math as complex as you see in games would come about).

Then just have it all reflected into some OpenGL or something.

EDIT 2: Game maker is a real turn off...