Battle Chips -- Updated

Wow, that’s good.

Collisions. If a bot runs into another, they should both take damage, and the moving bot should stop (or maybe push?).

There’s also part of me wants a dead bot to explode. :slight_smile:

Having fun playing this! Reminds me of the board game RoboRally!

Just downloaded it and am liking it very much. I’d been half thinking of something similar myself after playing Cargo-Bot, then decided it would be easier to install Scratch on the computer, and now this looks firstly better than anything I would have done and secondly on the iPad so more likely to get the kids interested.

But I wonder how easy it would be to make a non-violent fork. It would need to replace the “destroy all other bots” by some other challenge. Anyone any ideas?

@Andrew_Stacey How about… The robots could find and collect resources, or traverse a garden to optimally plant seeds and water plants without trampling them, or clean a room?

@Andrew_Stacey I’d love that. In fact, some other focus… Collecting tokens, moving items from one place to another, would be welcome.

I’ll have another version up in a couple of hours. Scads of bug fixes. Some interface clean up. Tourney system still not implemented, but you can see now how it will work.

I like the idea of cleaning a room!

Then once someone successfully programs a bot to do it, I just need to figure out some way to get that program into one of my kids.

For exchanging bots, how about generating a bar code and email to other user for import - bar code can easily be complex enough for your instructions.

A bit fiddly though perhaps, but could fly.

Version 0.20

https://gist.github.com/2484258

https://gist.github.com/2484269

Roughly one scad zillion bug fixes, leaving only one blue jillion to go. Among other things, radar and laser fire now works when aimed down.

As @Bortels suggested, robots now bump on collision (and their bump sensors are activated). There is also “heat” from exchanged laser fire and visible damage.

The tourney screen is semi-functional, but doesn’t actually launch matches. That’s next.

@blissap – I love the idea of exchanging bots as images. I think I can code up something (not a standard bar code) that fits a bot on a postage stamp sized image. Could be a cute way to trade them.

@Andrew_Stacey, how about robots building something, like a car factory or something? Or bacteria battles… Violence on a very small scale… :slight_smile:

@Mark, thanks for keeping us updated!

The heat effect is great, @Mark. My bot survived your Killbot by reversing off the arena on to the UI… :slight_smile:

@Fred, Ha! There’s another bug to search out. I’ve fixed the order of execution problem with the radar so that it should now work correctly. Unfortunately, this also has the effect of making that %!&#! Smart Spinner into a real nuisance.

Oh, and the damage sensor is working, so you can trigger a run for the hills routine.

I’m thinking I need to reduce laser damage to give bots with more complex code time to react. Otherwise, the premium is on tiny shoot-first, think later programs, and unlike with Cargo-Bot, I don’t think brevity should necessarily be the goal.

Version 0.30

Lots of bug fixes. New Random chip. Melee tourney now working.

https://gist.github.com/2504980

https://gist.github.com/2505005

This is the first version where you can really put your ace bot through its paces.

Wow. Awsome. This is coming out on the App Store soon, right? This is starting to remind me of Scratch.

It would be nice if forward took an argument for how far - I want my bot to seek a wall, then turn and drive away from it to avoid wallhuggers. I’m not sure how to do that without a variable forward, a counter, or a ton of forward commands.

I’m also thinking interrupts - onDamage for example. You say “onDamage 10”, and when you’re hit, it jumps to 10 (which is presumably either evasion or return fire).

@Bortels, I’ve created a “Repeat” chip that repeats the preceding chip X number of times. So you can do something like go forward 10 times, or put a repeat behind a goto and execute a section of code a fixed number of times.

It does seem to make for some more interesting behavior. It’ll be in the next update.

Thanks.

@Mark, like @Bortels I think measuring the distance to the wall would be fun, but also to other robots. That kinda gets us to registers or variables… Repeat sounds great.

Hi mark - I just really got down to playing with Battle Chips and designed a bot that can usually beat all the other bots. But I have suggestions:

  1. Better editor - Infinate scrolling, meaning Infinate chips. Also, you can drag chips between others.
  2. Custom angle rotation - So we can have more complicated bots. So say something like “turn left 63°”.
  3. Check for bots within a radius - Basically checking for heat.
  4. Better number chooser - A number pad entry.
  5. Missle - Shoot a bullet that takes time to get to the destination.
  6. More bots - So I can have crazy battles.
  7. Automatically end round when one robot left - Self explanatory.
  8. Copy robot code to clipboard - Through the print window. Then when 1.4 comes out, the app can fetch a bot from a URL.
  9. Recording button - So you can record the battle.
  10. Full screen battles - So we can get the full effect of the battle.
  11. Little explosions - When someone is damaged or hit, a little explosion occurs.
  12. Drag a bot on another space to duplicate it - I really need duplicating bots.
  13. Add bump with wall or bump with player.
  14. Add a wait function - I don’t know when we could use it, but it might be nice.
  15. Mines - So players can run into them.
  16. Get it on the app store.
    That’s a lot of suggestions, but I have many ideas and I think these could be awesome. As you can tell, I think you should add a few more features and submit it to the app store possibly for .99¢. For the art, Simeon may be a trillion times better than me, but I’d be happy to do it if you need any.
    Thanks!

@Zoyt. Wow, lots of good suggestions.

I’m definitely intending to implement #7 & #12.

To address #1, at some point I’d like to make it so you could take a whole board and reduce it to a chip, then let you drag that chip onto other boards.

I really like the full screen battle idea. I hadn’t even thought of that, but I think I will change the tourney mode so that it automatically goes to full screen. Which might make your “more bots” idea feasible.

Suggestion 4 makes me sad. I was pretty taken with my little number slider.

Oh, and I’m planning to extend the design screen so your bot can have different weapons, along with tougher armor, shields, and improved mobility.

Finally, yes, I hop the app store is in the future for this app, but there’s a lot of work to make that happen.

Mark, I would like your number slider better if it started at the current number. For example, I had a Goto 16 and now need to change it to 17, but when I long-tap it goes to 1, and I need to drag down again. If it went to 16 it would make it easier to slide a little bit down (or up) to change by one.

(I’m still on .20, in case that matters.)

Thanks. About the number slider, how about just a drag to the chip you want like in Xcode when linking things. Then you can move that chip and it would stay linked. The number sliders were just a problem for me because of my lack of precision. Mabey just make bigger number targets for now. And I would love to help with this project in any way I can. I’m looking forward to every thing in the next updates!
Thanks a lot!