Does anyone have any ideas for an RTS/strategy game for programmers? I.e., where part of the gameplay would involve programming the behaviour of units or buildings? This makes sense to me because an RTS might require lots of quick micro-management and this could be done better if it was scripted. The challenge of the game would then become in scripting the better system for unit or building behaviour. Age of Empires II allowed AI scripting to a certain extent as you could write your own script and set it in the map editor. Are there any other examples of this?

I actually had an idea like that before ... what if players could pre-script how their units would respond to specific situations?
I figured, even if rather interesting to programmers, it would be of fairly limited interest to anyone else.

Considering the intended audience ... programmers ... I doubt you actually would need much of a backstory at all. Realistically you're not going to be selling it so it doesn't need the dressings. To the programmer crowd it would hold just as much interest as a prototype, a proof of concept/tool.

You could just make it a simple and straightforward vanilla RTS, purely functional graphics, and I'm sure the target audience would still be just as interested ... enthralled by programming/testing their scripts.

Come to think of it ... this would probably make a pretty fun teaching tool.

You might want to take a look at Core War if you haven't already.

Yep, I've seen Core Wars and I've also played a Java game where you have to program your own robot tank (RoboCode).

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Original post by polyfrag Does anyone have any ideas for an RTS/strategy game for programmers?

This came up maybe 9 months ago? I can't track the thread down via search. My comment then is the same as it is now. When I want to program, I'll program. When I want to play games it's because I don't want to program...

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I.e., where part of the gameplay would involve programming the behaviour of units or buildings?

Not a small bit of effective FPS and PVP MMO play is the development of chea scripts.


You might though run into Moo3 syndrome (the game plays itself, and is thus not very fun).

I thought that AI Fleet Commander was a pretty cool idea; this seems similar to what you're talking about.

It has been abandoned, but the source, I think, is still available for download. The guides and documents are no longer on the site, but, from what I remember, the game had a really cool design: massive battles, and large star ships that could hold and deploy a large number of AI controlled units ( by the programmer playing the game ).

I would love ( and am trying ) to implement some of these ideas into my projects, but as you know or will discover there is some involved programming to be typed.

You should also look into ALife, a related subject.
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A programmer game can only be directed to a small minority audience; however, if the restrictions are relaxed, one can release a "design" game. The language to interact with this type of game is not as complicated as a programmer game. It is more of a build-and-tweek-and-observe-and-tweek-again type of enterprise. Indeed, many industrial design simulations fall under this umbrella as well as some flash-based games I've seen over the past year or two. So you see you can make some concessions....

Anyway, best of luck. I love this subject and if you continue down this vein please definitely keep us posted.

Mindrover is another great example of this kind of game. Very light on the actually programming. This idea can by easily expanded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Programming_games
There are several others. My own favorite is colobot. In that game you needed to explore a planet, mine resources and fight of creature. All by manually programming bots.

Personally (and as a programmer), I don't like programmer games. I prefer consistent and fair game rules.

If you want to give pre-scripted user determined behaviours to units I'd prefer giving players a system more like Final Fantasy XII's Gambit system, where you could set up situational commands for your AI party members (i.e. a priority list of actions and optional conditions, like: IF Health < 50% THEN Heal). Something where players could all use the same logic, without any requirements on programming to whittle away your audience.

In non-commercial applications where you're not concerned with your audience I find it a more interesting concept (such as competitions where everyone creates their own bot, or teams build robots however they want so long as they follow set rules). Things like this are one-off things, and it makes sense to invest time up front. I don't know that I'd spend much time on a game that requires so much time up front to be successful. I think it COULD have a loyal following, but it would be the same few people.

These will only ever appeal to people who find programming fun (and don't burn themselves out in their day job) – so I wouldn't really recommend it unless you're going for a specific contest or something.

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Original post by polyfrag Does anyone have any ideas for an RTS/strategy game for programmers? I.e., where part of the gameplay would involve programming the behaviour of units or buildings? This makes sense to me because an RTS might require lots of quick micro-management and this could be done better if it was scripted. The challenge of the game would then become in scripting the better system for unit or building behaviour.

If it's heavy coding you want, pitting AI bots against each other can be done in any versus game, assuming a suitable interface is offered.

But I don't see the point in the situation you chose as your example. Why wouldn't you just make those RTS units reasonably intelligent to begin with, if you don't want micromanagement in the game?

Simple chaining and conditional branching of orders could work in a game where you either do not have continuous direct control of your units (for instance, a U-boat command sim where the boats only receive orders while surfaced in radio contact) or you are rewarded for controlling them only frequently (in the same game, maybe you can order how often the boat comes up for orders, but every time carries risk of the boat getting sunk).