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From: wscott@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Wayne H Scott)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: Robot games...
Message-ID: <1991Apr7.212327.6218@en.ecn.purdue.edu>
Date: 7 Apr 91 21:23:27 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Lines: 57

I fell in love with the programmable robot games years ago when I had
an Apple ][ and played Robot Wars (?) by MUSE.
 
Yesterday I downloaded Robot Battle Demo with high hopes.
 
It is not the game I have been waiting for someone to write for
the mac.  I have a plan in my head for a very good robot battle
program but I do the know how to write the macintosh front end.
(Maybe I could get together with someone?)
 
Robot Battle seems like a good game but to make it enjoyable the language
needs to be improved so that it doesn't frustrate the programmer.
 
Like the following improvements:
	* The programming language is far too limited.  A nice properly parsed
	  language could be set up with yacc that would have a good syntax.
	  In Robot Battle you must put spaces between every command and
	  general expressions are not legal.  (plus it needs a unary minus
	  operator.) 
 
	* The language must include strong math capabilities.  If I am going 
	  to write a fancy program to compute trajectories I want floating-
	  point numbers, trig functions, square roots, etc.  The more power
	  you give the programmer, the neater the robots are going to be.
 
	  I like the fact that Robot Battle counts a turn as whenever the
	  robot scans, moves, fires or turns, and does not punish the 
	  involved computations.
 
	* In Robot Battle, you can only move in one of eight directions.
	  This forces the programer to use separate logic to move and fire.
	  I think the robot should be able to move in any direction so that
	  general moves are possible.
 
	* The language should include structured flow of control statements:
	  	if - then - else
		for next
		while
		real functions
 
 
I don't mean to discount the work and effort that when into Robot Battle
(and RoboWars for that matter) but I wanted to see what people think
of my vision of a new battling robot game.
 
All I need is for somebody to send me code to handle all the graphics and
I could supply the parser and interpreter.  (and I need some spare time!)
 
By the way, I might write one of these games someday so please send me
what you would like  to see.


-- 
_________________________________________________________________________
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