Quote:Original post by Drethon Have any of you seen colobot? Its a game where you can operate a bunch of robots to build things on other planets though either first person or a c like script. Very interesting game but I haven't had time to play with it fully yet...
Similar to this idea, while reading this thread I couldn't help but think about the guys sitting at JPL and sending packets to the Martian Rovers(Spirit and Opportunity). Could be a way to go with a game of this type and might bring added interest to your project[rather than Robot X moving around the forest or some abandoned warehouse]. I think the key would to have a simplified scripting language but not overly-simplified solutions to puzzles. Force the gamer to be creative in their solutions and possibly offer various manners of solving a problem as well.
These aspects will make your game much less of an exercise in programming in your pseudo-scripting language and more of a "strategy"/"puzzle" game. Which people gobble up by the thousands[Reference: The $10 video game rack at Wal*Mart filled with Card/Puzzle games].
Anyway, that would be my preliminary discussions on possible avenues for exploration in your endevour(no space-based pun intended). Good luck!
I'm sure I've heard about a game that has robot programming as its theme. From what I remember, the game consisted of programming a robot (or maybe an A.I. agent, I can't remember) to do a whole range of different tasks, such as navigate through a maze, or race around a track. Can't remember much more about it though.
I think the general game idea is a good one (was actually thinking about doing something similar as a game at one time too). But as you said, the tricky part is making the programming simple enough for non-programmers to use. I'd go with a visual language of some kind, similar to the simpler forms of Lego Mindstorms programming. If you can drag-and-drop icons that refer to sensors, link them up to logic gates or simple arithemtics operators, and have some kind of simple visual debugger or testing system, then I think it would work quite well.
Make the robot sensors something simple. In real robotics there's a lot of error involved in sensing, which is where a lot of difficulty arises. You can make the game a lot easier to understand if the sensors are always right. You can also make the game a bit more classic puzzle-like by having really well defined symbolic style landmarks (such as flags, coloured plates, etc.) scattered all over the place in strategic locations (this is what I was planning on using in my theoretical design).
I believe the game you're referring to was... Robot Warriors? Or something along those lines... Some examples can be found here: http://www.the-underdogs.org/genre.php?name=Strategy&subgen=Programming
Gotta love the Underdogs!
Anyway, it ~has~ been done before, but so has every other "type" of game. The key is to make yours bigger, better, faster and stronger. Much like the Million-Dollar Man I know, but if the shoe fits right?
Anyway, I think a system whereby a player could begin knowing next to nothing about programming whatsoever[Insert first graders here] could begin to pick up the basic "structure" of writing functions and whatnot to move their character around, through the use of a visual language, and progress to eventually writing out their own functions for moving and manipulating their robot.
This could be an entirely new avenue of exploration, educational games are all the rage, and if you can get every grade school in the world to pay $1 for a license to use your game to teach the "next generation" how to program computers, you'd be a rich man(maybe not but one can dream).
The key is to make the game fun, while still being educational[Pause to fondly reflect on games like Reader Rabbit, et al.]. Look at programs like "Robot Wars" and "Digimon: Digital Monsters" and the like and use the inherent interests of children and to large degree grown adults to stimulate them into WANTING to play your game, then make them learn while they're doing it(You sly bastard you!) and you've got yourself a real leg to stand on.
I know that when I first got started down the road to learning how to code I looked for games and such that would test my ability and also teach me at the same time, I wasn't looking for a cartoon-ish video game that was necessarily fun, more functional, but that's not to say that there isn't a huge market for it.
Doing something like this would be something that many people would look for and would I imagine capture the hearts of programmers as well, perhaps if you just use any scripting language or high-level language so as to make sure that the learning experience does not go to waste.
Anyway, I'm rambling cause it's past my bedtime, but I really like this idea the more I think about it. Good luck once again and I hope that there is further discussion down avenues such as this. We've blasted mutant zombie's heads to pieces for quite long enough, perhaps it's time to actually be productive with our colossal wastes of time and energy?
If you are worried about lack of interaction after hitting the "go" button, why not allow the player to indirectly control the robot through stumuli such as turning lights on and off (which could control a light sensor), moving objects around, flicking switches, etc. Of course, you'd have to be careful not to give the player so much control as to make it easy and you'd have to make sure that the things the player can alter are fun to do so as I'd imaging flicking 100 switches on a level would get somewhat dull, so perhaps you need to add a comedy element in or something like that. Just a suggestion anyhoo!
Quote:From the sounds of what you've said, the player will need to examine the level, program the robot, and then watch it attempt to solve the level using that programming, is that correct?
That is correct. I'm worried about the lack of interactivity once the player presses the 'go' button, however.
This brings to mind an old puzzle game called "Laser Light", in which players had to place various prisms/mirrors/etc into the level before firing the laser beam, with the goal of making one or more beams hit one or more specific targets (and occasionally making sure they don't hit some targets.
Although the player didn't get any interaction with the beam while it was being fired, this didn't take overly long, and they'd get to see the effect of thier actions, so it was still quite entertaining. If you can make sure interesting things will be happening in the levels and that it doesn't take too long for the robot to make it's attempt I don't think players will be bothered too much.
The idea of being able to indirectly influence the robot with lightswitches, etc. could also be a decent possibility to introduce some interaction.
Quote:Original post by Kazgoroth This brings to mind an old puzzle game called "Laser Light", in which players had to place various prisms/mirrors/etc into the level before firing the laser beam, with the goal of making one or more beams hit one or more specific targets (and occasionally making sure they don't hit some targets.
Actually, I was reminded of "The Incredible Machine", but I forgot to include that in my post. In that series of games, you had to put together a whole series of weird gadgets together in order to complete an objective. However, you couldn't change anything once you pressed "go". Sometimes the contraption would take a while to run before failing, but it didn't seem to matter. If you failed, the game just reset so you could try again.
