glguy / ninjas

Haskell game where multiple players attempt to blend in with computer controlled characters while being first to visit the key locations on the board.

Ninjas

Ninjas is a multiplayer game where players attempt to blend in with the computer controlled characters on their quest to either loot all five castles or to eliminate all of the other players.

NPCs will move randomly, will not die, and will not attack.

Players can stun NPCs, kill other players, attempt to regain anonymity using the smoke bomb, and attempt to secretly loot the castles.

When any player loots a castle he hasn't looted before the text "DING" will appear in the top corner of the screen. No further indication is given as to which castle was looted or which character was the looter.

Controls

• A - Attack
• S - Smoke bomb
• N - New game
• C - Clear messages
• ESC - Quit game
• Left Click - Move to clicked location
• Right Click - Stop moving immediately

Installation

$ cabal install

Usage

Ninjas server [FLAGS] NUM_NINJAS
    --port=NUM    Server port
    --npcs=NUM    Number of NPCs
    --smokes=NUM  Number of initial smokebombs

Ninjas client [FLAGS] [HOSTNAME [PORT]]
    --server=STRING  Server hostname
    --port=NUM       Server port
    --user=STRING    User Name

ninjas's Issues

Enhancement: Bot Support

I'm building bot support and DSL to help teach my nieces, nephews, and daughters to program. I'd like to make sure what I build can get upstream.

1. Add "Ninjas bot" support via a module Bot.hs. This module includes "runBot" which either uses a default bot or loads some bytecode from a file specified at runtime.

2. Define a turning-complete byte code. No strong ideas here yet, but basic operations of Move, Attack, Smoke, and GetWorld would be included.

3. Define a language 'Ninja'. This could be a "typical" DSL that includes the primitives and helper functions in the style of:

   distanceTo :: World -> Entity -> Int -- returns the distance to the taget
   followBeizer :: World -> Entity -> Command -- returns a Move command

   Or it could be a more restrictive language that takes a set of conditions for attacking, moving, and smoking. In this case the possible "conditions" and their logical connectives would be part of the language.

4. Make a stand-alone compiler, shipped with Ninjas, that compiles Ninja to NBC - Ninja to Ninja bytecode. Also, write tutorials.

5. Parameterize the step rate in the server to allow faster game play for tournaments or faster evolution of Ninjas (given a genetic algorithm).

6. Add a server parameter that will identify the clients' Ninja, allowing easier development.