[comp.sys.mac.games] >>>Robot games

jtsweet@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Jonathan Thoma Sweet) (04/09/91)

After speaking to one of my programer friends about these "robot" games,
he brought over his own robot game.  He calls it "Battle Code", it  
involves this.  You write a program in pascal.  So does your friend, you
then put these into a pascal source of the game.  Compile it in THINK 3.0
and Your two programs slug it out in a one dimensional world that is 
10,000 varibles long.  The way he has it set up is very interesting.   
The code is set off by this rule (which is not inforced, so you can
change it), you can only have 5 assignment statements per set.
You can have as many sets as you want, but you should stick to 5 assignments
per set.  The reason for the sets are that, each set can take damage 
(if it's hit, it will not work).  There are about fifteen commands that
tell the main program what your program is going to do, like scan, move,
lay traps, repair itself, create new code, and the list goes on.  The
great part is you can use any item that is in pascal (records, pointers, 
etc.).  But you do have to have THINK 3.0 (doesn't work with 4.0).

If there is enough intrest he may do documentaion and get a fully debugged
copy to sumex.

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alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Alex Pournelle) (04/10/91)

jtsweet@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Jonathan Thoma Sweet) writes:

>After speaking to one of my programer friends about these "robot" games,
>he brought over his own robot game.  He calls it "Battle Code", it  
>involves this.  You write a program in pascal.  So does your friend, you
>then put these into a pascal source of the game.  Compile it in THINK 3.0
>and Your two programs slug it out in a one dimensional world that is 
>10,000 varibles [sic] long.

Sounds reminiscent of Core Wars.  Do you know about this game?  There's
a governing society (International Core Wars Fdn., I believe) and they
have regular competitions between the "cores".  Quite interesting to
watch.  As I recall, C-W runs on PCs, but also has been 'ported to other
systems.  You write in a meta-assembler and then watch the battle on
screen.

		Alex


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