Thursday, August 18, 2005

Ayrshire & Allentown version 0.001

Bravenet.com (which hosts my work in progress) didn't let me upload a .jar file. So if you want to try out the first version of my amazing game, you'll have to download it and THEN rename it to .jar.

In other words, once you have the file "Ayrshire.txt" on your computer, rename it to "Ayrshire.jar". Then, if you're on Windows a double-click should be sufficient. On Linux type this on the terminal:

java -jar Ayrshire.jar

and you're good to go.

By the way, the game is text-only and is pretty worthless. But it's a start. Explanation:

There are two countries, A and B. Each start with 5 soldiers. During your turn you can attack the neighbouring country. If you do so, choose with how many soldiers you'll be attacking. These will be moved to the front. Then the attack sequence occurs, which mimics A&A action:
1) For every attacking soldier on the front, you get a roll of the dice.
2) If you roll 1 you have hit an enemy soldier.
3) Now the enemy retaliates: for every enemy soldier (on the front or the camp), he gets a roll.
4) If the defender rolls 2 or 1 he kills one of your men.

Next, the attacker can choose to retreat, if there are still any men left on the front.
At the completion of this attacking sequence the attacking country gets reinforcements: 1 per each kill.

The turn is now complete. Next country's up.

The game finishes when one of the countries has no men left, obviously.

For you A&A people, notice I have left out absolutely everything. For goodness sake, now the poor defending soldiers can't shoot back once they're downed! But I had to put a limit to the first version's requirements.

More to come: a graphic client. Yes, if you run Windows you might not see anything... Unless you call it from the command window.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Kishorn Logos

I finally succumbed to 'net pressure and acquired a blog. Somewhat unnecessary, but an appropriate container for Kishorn Logos, my new one-man software venture. Last week it occurred to me that Settlers of Catan should be written in Java - but alas, there are many such versions out there! Never mind, I'll take on Axis & Allies instead.

I'll start by coding very small game-like applications, as practice for the real thing. Watch this spot for the upcoming Ayrshire & Allentown...