New game: GrodBots

[jfuerth]

Hi everyone,

I've been working on this game on and off in my spare time for the last couple of years. I'd appreciate any feedback you guys can provide!

The premise: Build circuits from logic gates (AND, OR, NOT, NAND, NOR).  If you build your circuit properly, the robot will reach the cake, and everyone will be happy!

The idea of making a game around logic gates was inspired by "Rocky's Boots" and "Robot Odyssey" which I played on an Apple II in my childhood. The actual gameplay mechanics are very different in GrodBots, but I have to tip my hat to that game, which I'm still thinking of all these years later.



The game is available at http://grodbots.googlecode.com/files/grodbots-1.0beta.jar. Just download and run. Should work fine on Java 5 and newer.

There is also a level editor, so you can make your own levels if you want. If you do that, besides being very happy, I'd be pleased to post them in the project's download section for you. Get the level editor at http://grodbots.googlecode.com/files/grodbots_editor-1.0beta.jar, and make sure you put it in the same directory as the game (the editor jar is just a manifest that specifies a different Main-Class and depends entirely on the game jar).

Update: If you prefer WebStart, here are the launch URLs:

The game: http://grodbots.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/grodbots.jnlp
The level editor: http://grodbots.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/grodbots_editor.jnlp

Hope you enjoy, but please let me know either way!

-Jonathan

[gouessej]

Hi!

Please could you rather provide a JNLP link? I would like to add your game into the Java Game Tome.

[Eli Delventhal]

Very cool! I'll give it a try soon, although this process would be expedited if you made it work via Webstart. 

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[jfuerth]

Ok, sounds like WebStart is the way to distribute little Java games!

I've created a JNLP file, but due to a problem with Google Code Hosting, launching won't work on Java 5. You get an HTTP 404 even though the file is there. If anyone's interested, the relevant Google Code bug is here: http://code.google.com/p/support/issues/detail?id=193

I'm going to have to point the JNLP at a JAR file hosted at an alternate location. And then remember to upload the new JAR to both places for every release.

I will get the jar file signed and uploaded to another server tomorrow. Until then, anybody who's willing to try it out will have to take that extra step of finding the downloaded jar file and double-clicking it.

Thanks for your responses so far. I'll post another update when the webstart is set up properly!

-Jonathan

[Eli Delventhal]

I played it. It's fun, and I've got a few comments:

1) Don't make Grid walk when he isn't walking (animation-wise).
2) Grad doesn't seem to stay in the tiles like he's supposed to. He's not drawn in the center of his position.
3) There isn't an obvious way to remove accidental connections.

But, great work!

[jfuerth]

Ok, the webstart is ready to go!

Game: http://grodbots.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/grodbots.jnlp
Level Editor: http://grodbots.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/grodbots_editor.jnlp

I will update the original post to include these links too.

-Jonathan

[jfuerth]

I played it. It's fun, and I've got a few comments:

1) Don't make Grid walk when he isn't walking (animation-wise).

Good point, thanks. I'll fix it!

2) Grad doesn't seem to stay in the tiles like he's supposed to. He's not drawn in the center of his position.

Well, "supposed to" is subjective -- I designed the game to let the robot walk freely across the floor, and report the colour he's centred over. On a slightly related note, I do consider it a defect that he can walk half on a wall (since he's not "hitting" the wall until his centre point hits it). Do you think if I fixed this problem that the "not staying centred" problem would bother you less?

The reason I ask is that there are a number of levels (some of my favourites) that depend on the "move freely within squares" setup. I think the game is richer once you get past the expectation that the robot should jump from centre-of-square to centre-of-next-square.

3) There isn't an obvious way to remove accidental connections.

Also a good point. You probably noticed you can do it with Delete, Backspace, and Right-click->remove... but some sort of dragging gesture would be better. Any specific ideas? What was your first instinct?

But, great work!

Thanks!

By the way, which level did you get to?

-Jonathan

[Eli Delventhal]

I got to level 8 I think... It had a red floor on the left, green in the middle, and (probably) blue to the right. Then there were some smaller parts with multi-colored floor tiles in between each of the major colors, and the cake was in the center.

Haha, I noticed I typoed "Grod" twice, in two different ways! Sorry about that. 

Yeah, I think being able to drag a connection off is the best way of doing it. I did figure out the delete key, but I really wanted to be able to drag it off.

Well, it seems like you're doing collision with just his center point, rather than his entire dimension. If you gave him a bounding box and then didn't have him do anything color-wise (for a new color) until he's all the way on it, that might help. I don't think you should remove the functionality at all, I think you should just change up the animation so it looks better. Maybe he moves to the center of a tile automatically? I'm not what would be best, but sometimes it looked hokey.

[timfoden]

Fun game.  I liked it.

I think though that I managed to finish the last level with an unorthodox method

A = or(Blue, A)
Left = A
Right = not(A)

C = or(B, nc)
D = not(C)
E = or(D, nc)
F = and(E, E)
B = not(F)
Up = C
Down = D

(nc == not connected)

Cheers, Tim.

[jfuerth]

Unorthodox?! Watching your solution in action is the best fun I've had in a week.  I'll give you TRIPLE points for that solution.

Thanks for playing and I'm really glad you enjoyed the game.

If you ever feel like creating a level or a whole set thereof, I'd be pleased to post them on the game's download page. To whet your interest, there's a whole bunch of stuff you can do with the game engine that's not in use in the levels I've included so far: Multiple robots, switches that modify the map, switches that teleport the robot(s) or enable/disable other switches, additional types of terrain (other than just colours), and more. The GUI level editor supports all these things.

Thanks again for playing.

-Jonathan

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[CaptainJester]

Nice little game.  One thing you could do is have level passwords or save where the person was last time they played.  I am having trouble with one level and every time I want to give it another try I have to do all the levels before it.

[jfuerth]

Thanks for that suggestion, CaptainJester!

Now that I think of it, it was a pretty big oversight not to provide a way to start where you left off.

I'll definitely do this for the next release.

-Jonathan

[macphearsome]

hey i really like this game.  I'm stuck on level eleven but only because it's way past my bedtime and i'm tired!

I registered on this forum just to post here!  I have one tiny complaint:  when I change the size of the gates ("embiggen" or "ensmallen") it only changes the size of the current gates - new gates appear on screen as the normal size.  Of course, when I change the size of gates, all the gates jump to that size so it's no big deal... but thought you'd like to know!

Thank you so much for making this game!  It's truly a showcase of creative puzzling!