Anyone remember the old PSX game titled Carnage Heart? It was a stratigy game where players were tasked with developing AI for thier battle bots. It used a simple graphical representation of programing where players placed special "chips" upon a circut board (much like a 2D tile basied map editor) pretty ingenious really. But its kinda dissapointing that the game never really seemed to catch on... And honestly I never dived very far into the research/robo customization/negotiation apsects of Carnage Heart...programing the AI was way more interesting then those rather standard (and in comparison mundane) research/custom/negotiation gameplay activities. So I'm wondering if a AI programing stratigy game could fly that was more focused on the programing side of things then on the traditional stratigy game mechanics? Say a game where players program the AI for robotic tanks. Which battle it out in relatively flat terrain (no muckying up the works with altitude variences) with mostly equal tanks (keeping the focus on outsmarting the opponet rather than out gunning them). Obviously this would be a very nitchy title...but is there enough of a market there to exploit, or would I be the only fool interested in such a game?

You should look up Robowar, which is an old game where you program a robot to fight in a small arena. There were tournaments held for it for almost 15 years before it died out. I bet you could do something similar with a more modern implementation and retrieve some of the fanbase.

Thanks, Robowar looks pretty interesting. Would likely dump its traditional programing style for something more strait forward and graphical like Carnage Heart....it does give me ideas though :)

I would want the bots/weapons to be balanced...no uber weapons...the pea-shooter can be just as effective as the rail-gun if used correctly.