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Screeps – An MMO strategy sandbox game for programmers

screeps.com

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Re: Screeps – An MMO strategy sandbox game for programmers

#31

Post by gus_massa »

zaroth wrote: post #18

C# team did something similar when it first came out, I can't remember what it was called. You wrote a module and submitted the code to run on their servers. It was a similar 'critter' game where your code hunted for food, tried to reproduce, and competed with other code running in the same sandbox. There was a limited energy budget which was the main constraint on your code and meant you had to conserve energy and o…

IIRC they had a central server for coordination, but the code was run on the clients machines. You submitted the compiled CLR bytecode version of your C# program, and it was run in any machine. A part of the objective was to show that the bytecode was sure enough to be freely distributed, downloaded and automatically run.

Re: Screeps – An MMO strategy sandbox game for programmers

#32

Post by NhanH »

libc wrote: post #26

A lot of comments here are focusing on the pricing and ignoring the 'sandbox' part of the game's description. There is a leaderboard you can try to climb but it is reset monthly and isn't really shoved in your face. Beyond that you're free to set whatever goals you want and go about them however you wish, with the principles of other strategy games (harvest resources, build things, attack enemies, etc.) to give you i…

They have well supported API to push your code into it (alongs with gulp/ grunt package to do so, I think).

So you can work in your favourite environment and just "deploy" the code as normal, or am I missing anything?

Re: Screeps – An MMO strategy sandbox game for programmers

#33

Post by lurker456 »

iblaine wrote: post #29

Here's a neat map of screeps http://www.leagueofautomatednations.com/map

here are a few links:

ingame live map, sadly requires signup (free account will do): https://screeps.com/a/#!/map

shows alliances (player made, not part of the game, js heavy): http://www.leagueofautomatednations.com/map

another alliance view: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cz1HZrEUcAExwYa.jpg:large

Re: Screeps – An MMO strategy sandbox game for programmers

#34

Post by notheguyouthink »

Would it be possible to (now or eventually) play this game with "all" languages? Part of the value of this to me, would be doing it in languages i love, or want to learn, etc. Using a language i dislike, or even are indifferent about, means the gameplay itself has to pull all of my entertainment.. weight, if you will.

Thoughts?

Re: Screeps – An MMO strategy sandbox game for programmers

#35

Post by MayeulC »

This game reminds me of leekwars [1], though the latter is not an MMO. And is (was?) completely free. I feel that AI games like these can be a great introduction to programming (and maybe to emphasise the usefulness of free software, or at least free libraries/tools).

[1] https://leekwars.com/

Re: Screeps – An MMO strategy sandbox game for programmers

#36

Post by nottorp »

lewilewilewi wrote: post #27
goodjam wrote: post #21

How far are we from paying people to play a programming game, while using their code/solutions for solving problems?

That's basically this, right: https://www.starfighters.io/

The actual game site looks slashdotted... well, HN-ed...

Re: Screeps – An MMO strategy sandbox game for programmers

#37

Post by matty22 »

To anyone who plays, what's the ramp up time look like? It seems like such an interesting concept, but I often find that games like this have so much of their own vocabulary that it often doesn't feel like I'm writing JavaScript (or insert language here), it feels like I'm writing ScreepsScript.

Same with Code Combat and some other coding games.

Re: Screeps – An MMO strategy sandbox game for programmers

#38

Post by ggrochow »

matty22 wrote: post #37

To anyone who plays, what's the ramp up time look like? It seems like such an interesting concept, but I often find that games like this have so much of their own vocabulary that it often doesn't feel like I'm writing JavaScript (or insert language here), it feels like I'm writing ScreepsScript. Same with Code Combat and some other coding games.

Its actually quite well paced, due to how you progress through the game in real-time. You start out with access to a limited sub-set of the API, since you cannot build all the buildings/creep parts yet. First you're required to level your room up by upgrading your controller, which to get your first room up to the max level, can take weeks/months of RL time. ( but the game plays itself, and is always running )

The API you use at first is quite small, and takes care of some things like path-finding already, so you don't have to re-build that, though you totally can if you want. Heres[1] an example of some logic to get all your creeps mining from their closest source. Not use-able in a real-world script as the actual logic is awful, but the fun comes from figuring out what does work.

You can check out the API here[2]

[1]https://gist.github.com/ggrochow/db8986d2627d02c992f65cc0cce...

[2]http://support.screeps.com/hc/en-us/articles/203084991-API-R...

Re: Screeps – An MMO strategy sandbox game for programmers

#39

Post by ggrochow »

timvdalen wrote: post #2

Really liked playing the beta (or was it alpha?) of this when it came out, but the pricing didn't really make sense for me. Paying per compute time works for businesses looking for flexible cloud solutions, but as an individual this makes playing the game much less fun (because you're constantly paying attention to the cost).

Something worth mentioning, they recently introduced a "Subscription Token" item that you can purchase for real $, and sell on the market ingame for credits. That also means you can essentially purchase game-time for in-game credits

I purchased the game, 2 months of subscription, and have been using ingame-credits to fund my sub for the following 5 months ( I've currently got an additional 4 months of time in tokens that im trading on the market as well )

While it did take some time to get ramped up, and I am in a safe area with my alliance. A player can, with a little market interaction, not pay IRL money for the game. (you will have to survive long enough to get there, expect to get killed off a few times before you figure out defense)

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