Roborally

So there was I bored at work and wondering what I could do next once Go was done (which it nearly is). Reversi/Othello would be quite easy to do, then there's scrabble.

But then I thought.. what about RoboRally? If you've not heard of/played it, you have a robot on a board which made of various types of squares - pits, conveyor belts, rotating discs, firing lasers, teleporters, that sort of thing. You get dealt a selection of random movement cards (forwards 3, turn right, backwards 1, that sort of thing), from which you select 5 for any given turn. Once all players have selected, all the robots carry out their programming at once, frequently shoving each other off course/shooting each other and the like. You have to get your robot from point A to point B (and potentially to point C etc) at the same time as the other players are tyring to do the same thing with their robot.

Now imagine all that rendered in 3d with all the robot moving full automated and the like.

Feasible? Might take too many prims I guess.

Dangeorus stuff, boredom at work.

Jonathan

I was toying with this idea (as I toy with many ideas) a while back. It's doable. Not simple, but doable. I don't know how many people like the game and would want to play it, however. Then there's the issue that it's a copyrighted game...

Honestly, if you're not selling it...

I'd much rather see this.

The copyright thing is an issue with scrabble too. And probably Othello/Reversi. Shh, don't tell ...

Copyright is a difficult gig - and one commonly ignored by Residents. Doesn't make them right, either.

As a general rule though, I believe it's okay to use an IP like Dark Tower. It's only resold these days I believe, and so long as you don't distribute copies or sell the product you should be fine. It's also a good scripting project since it's not many prims to worry about.

So, set up a free kiosk somewhere. And remember to give credit to the original creators - or better yet, see if you can contact them for approval!

I was thinking about Battle-bots, myself.

"It's robot fightin' time"

I've seen several freeware implementations of RoboRally here and there on the internet, so I don't think they copyright nazis are going to come beating down anyone's door at midnight (ooooh Godwin's Law!).

GO TWONKY GO!!

Related: there is the Braniacs Warbot game in development, with an arena in Gibson. Contact Deevyde Maelstrom for more information.

Wasnt there a competition called robo rally where a bunch of teams (buisnesses and college teams mostly) made robotic cars that had to complete a 50 mile course autonomously, not one car made it through the entire course (many didnt make a turn, or ended up upside down)

Reversi is save as are checkers and chess. It's old enough to be public domain.

I think a variant on RoboRally would work, and be fully legal. (And not just hoping Mr. Garfield comes after you with a seldgehammer and a roll of C&D forms.)

I looked and saw one variant playable online where you are fixing a spaceships hull.

I've got a viariant idea... Maybe I should see if LSL is up to the challenge. The biggest hurtle will be letting people select their program order without anyone else seeing it.

<- has no idea what she's talking about but........ llDialog()?

Right, now ya got me hooked on ideas. I've played RoboRally quite a bit myself, and I also have the Java clone (BotsNScouts) somewhere...

First off, someone really interested in this should get a copy of the Java app I mention above and see how they're programming the deck of programming cards. Though it won't translate directly, I'm sure it will give ideas.

Now, since the programming cards are in fact a finite deck, there's couple ways to handle it:
- 'Physical' i.e. Prim cards, like Blackjack et al. Yes, the issue of the camera is problem.
- IMs to the user. Clunky, yes.
- llDialog(). Never used this yet, don't know how bad it would be.

Most likely is combination of these. Have each player be in a 'pod' that goes dark during the programming phase, and transparent during the program resolution phases. That, along with a timer on programming (like the Tringo timer), would discourage the main threat of camera cheating. Placing the pods in remote corners would help too, and/or locking camera and moving it as needed for program/watch.

With the 'pod' idea, you can implement the programming phase to be solely within the pod object (in whatever format you choose), and a listen or email comms would occur between each pod and the main board for the turn.

This comms format also allows the same message sent along to the robots themselves, to implement the moves. They would still need to be directed by the master board, due to the priority settings in programming cards.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something here. Any other suggestions?

I've got most of the roborally sets/expansions (all but 1) that have been released in the US. There's a couple of German sets that were made as well.

I don't think Mr. Garfield is the concern anymore. I'm prety sure he sold it to 'Wizards of the Coast' (the makers of Magic the gathering cards). Or maybe they just have distibution rights? There used to be information about the game on their website but they don't even list in their product catalog anymore... Anyway, it's out of print and I know of no plans/rumors that they ever intend to market it again.

Building something based on Robo Rally should be prety safe at this point provided there is no profit involved.

Let me know if you need anything resource wise for building this. Maybe I can build a robot or two for the project (I already had some ideas along the lines of avatars based on Roborally...)

Twonky rules!

'Wreck of the BSM Pandora'?
http://zappa.brainiac.com/spaceship/SPI/wreck-pandora.html



How about successive dialogs, where you fill the dialog with the current "instruction" stack, and let them add a new instruction?

Example dialogs:

No commands.
What next?

(*) Forward
( ) Turn Left
( ) Turn Right
( ) Something Else
( ) DONE

User selects 'Forward' and clicks OK.

1) Forward
What next?

( ) Forward
( ) Turn Left
(*) Turn Right
( ) Something Else
( ) DONE

User selects 'Turn Right' and clicks OK.

1) Forward
2) Turn Right
What next?

( ) Forward
( ) Turn Left
( ) Turn Right
( ) Something Else
(*) DONE

User selects 'DONE' and clicks OK. All commands are entered.

You could also have an 'Undo' ("back up" by one instruction) option. I don't know if there are enough option slots available in a dialog to support the full range of commands for RoboRally.

IP protection of games is an interesting subject, at least in the United States:

1) You can copyright any game artwork, and you can copyright a particular expression of the game rules
2) You can patent any equipment involved in the game
3) You can trademark any logos associated with the game

But none of this will protect the game rules themselves. If the game equipment isn't patented, or if you can figure out how to play the game with different equipment, then all you need to do is replace any artwork with your own, write the rules in your own words, and you're free to make (and even sell) your own version of the game.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

No, he said playable online. I think I've seen the one he's talking about, too. I used to play there, in fact.

Okay, I forgot to include "Did someone make an online version of Pandora?" -- reason is that a friend of mine is working on a computerized version of it, and I thought maybe someone else had already done it.

So, I have no idea what game he was talking about then.

Wizards of rhte Coast is re-releasing an updated RoboRally this July, by the way.

Yes, llDialog is the best of all the simple ways to get some form of private hand-ordering into the game. But I think I _have_ come up with a way to use in-game images in a private way. If it works, it'll be sorta cool. But I haven't tried to implement it yet, so I'm not sure that it will work.

My design notes, now that I'm looking at them again, dropped the whole "robot" theme from the game. I also was working on a simplification of the rules that would clean up a number of the sequence holes in the original. Looking at it all now, I'm tempted to combine it with another game I was creating from scratch to make a hybrid that is quite unique. Not sure how fully they'd mix, though. Robots might make everything easier to conceptualize.

Ohh! In-game image privacy! I'm sure many people will be all over that, because it's for instance one of the things that's keeping me from taking a crack at, say, euchre, or several other card games. If I can help in some way, just IM me in-game or whatever.

Ah, okay. That makes more sense :>

http://www.eyeplaygames.com/


Interesting, if you can pull it off. I'm not trying to be a downer when I say this, but with the current way SL is, I don't think it's possible. If you're displaying the image on any prim or particle, it's impossible for it not to be viewed by someone else.

Have a notecard for every 'card', give correctnumber to each player, program keeps track of who has what card (to verify legal choices). possibly gives the cards in a folder named with the game and turn number (so that multiple cards can be kept w/o the player getting confused).


player right-clicks and opens to see the card. (or it's in title for that matter)


player creates a notecard with the desired order and gives it to the controlling comupter. (this triggers a change event)

or llDialog as above, which card first... and a done/restart. note that somebody clicking ignore here, can get in a world a trouble

can have a max of 12 choices on a dialog cards, and with 5 cards have 15 possible orders, so can't list every order (and the text bubble is tiny).

you could make the last llDialog() have a button for "ARE YOU COMPLETELY SURE?" and if they click that it sets a variable that doesn't let them change their choice. if they don't get to that point they can keep changing the order but the robot also won't run yet.

Hmm, this might be useable for 52-count card games also, but unfortunately, it sounds super cumbersome.

If they dismiss a dialog with ignore, they can "touch" the master controller object (whatever it is) to get the dialog back (yeah, that opens up another potential "problem" -- multiple open dialogs). But yeah, it would be cool if LL could "fix" dialogs. Main problem is backwards compatibility, which makes it unlikely.

While I may not know much about scripting, I just wanted y'all to know that there are people in SL, like myself, who are very fond of RoboRally. I'd love an opportunity to play it (or a version of it) online.

You know, if you went the dialog route; you wouldn't need to create robots. You could have the player's avis themselves be the tokens....having them sit on a pose ball during play. It would allow you to have animations and infinitely customizable 'pieces', without straining the prim usage of the board itself.

It has occured to me that the board doesn't necessarily have to be more than one prim. Sure, it would be plain, but only the master controller needs to know where each special board device is (especially if we take Liona Clio's idea).


Excuse my ignorance if I'm wrong, but don't you need edit permissions to be able to do that?


I'd give them a maximum of redos... indecisive people (like me) could hold up the game


I can only find one other person who wants to play near here. It kinda sucks. And this friend has bought quite a few of the RoboRally games...


This could work. Good idea :>