Killbots

Hello all,

Despite having hung out on this list for the last two years, I've
never really introduced myself or my game, Killbots. Since I'm about
to start asking for favours, I thought I'd do that now.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My name is Parker Coates. I'm 25 years old. I currently live in
Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada. I program ultra-violet wastewater
disinfection equipment for a living.

I've been working on my game, Killbots on and off for the last two
years. It's actually the first and only thing I've ever written in
C++. I had just read a great introduction to C++ book and wanted to
start a new project to test what I'd learned. I was KDE user and had
recently discovered the game "robots", so I thought a "robots" clone
in KDE would be a great start.

In case your unfamiliar, "robots" is a classic, turn-based, Unix
console game in which the player tries to avoid being killed by
attacking robots. The player can not attack the robots directly, but
instead must get them to collide with one another or the rubble of
previous collisions. The game itself is quite simple, but can be
surprisingly entertaining. The GTK port of "robots", Gnome Robots,
added several new twists to the game, including two classes of robots,
pushable junkheaps, and safe teleports, all of which have been
included Killbots.

The game was originally called KRobots, a name which, interestingly
enough, is now used by this non KDE project:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/krobots/. It was written in KDE3/Qt3
using QCanvas and used raster images for sprites. Due to my lack of
experience with C++ and Qt, I ended up rewriting the entire
application twice, because I kept coding myself into corners due poor
design decisions.

By the time I had created something reasonably playable, I learned
that the future lie with KDE4/Qt4, so I once again abandoned the
existing code and started a fresh rewrite to KDE4 and QGraphicsView
which was brand new at the time. SVG theming, custom rulesets,
highscores and animations were slowly added. The application was
renamed to Killbots, and eventually became respectable enough to move
into the SVN playground. While there it has continued to gain polish,
features and documentation and is now nearly release worthy.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, so that was the introduction, now onto asking for favours.

First and foremost, I'd greatly appreciate having Killbots reviewed.
Interface, game play, documentation and usability reviews are all
welcome, but a code review would be most appreciated. As I mentioned,
this is my first C++ application, so I'm extremely interested in any
comments or suggestions on the code and/or application design. I'm a
bit of a perfectionist, so I'd be glad to hear about even nit-picky
issues or inconsistencies. Ideas for potential new features are also
welcome, but lower priority.

Second, I'd like some input on what the logical next step is for
Killbots. I remember there being a list of requirements somewhere that
a game needed to meet before being considered for inclusion in
KDEGames, but I can't seem to find it now. Does such a list exist?

There has also been talk lately of dividing KDEGames into Minimal,
Extended, and Extra submodules. Obviously Killbots wouldn't fit in the
Minimal set, but I question whether it would even be popular enough to
go into the Extended set. I'm a bit apprehensive about the Extra
submodule though, as it's my understanding that these would actually
live in Extragear, which isn't automatically
translated/packaged/released with the main KDE project. Thoughts on
this would be appreciated.

Third is artwork. I've already spoken to it-s about creating a new
default theme, but but if anyone else is interested in making a theme,
the more the merrier. There are even basic instructions on how to do
in the game handbook. I'm also in need of an application icon and
icons for my three custom actions: teleport, teleport safely, and wait
out round. Any help with any of these would be greatly appreciated

Well, that's all I can think of write now. If you managed to make it
through this massive email, thanks for listening.

Parker
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[Paul B-2]

On Tuesday 02 September 2008 03:12:50 Parker Coates wrote:

> Okay, so that was the introduction, now onto asking for favours.
>
> First and foremost, I'd greatly appreciate having Killbots reviewed.
> Interface, game play, documentation and usability reviews are all
> welcome, but a code review would be most appreciated. As I mentioned,
> this is my first C++ application, so I'm extremely interested in any
> comments or suggestions on the code and/or application design. I'm a
> bit of a perfectionist, so I'd be glad to hear about even nit-picky
> issues or inconsistencies. Ideas for potential new features are also
> welcome, but lower priority.

You didn't specify where the code actually is, presumably it's in SVN but
after googling I don't really see it.

I played the Gnome version and thought it was ok (not a great game, but
passes the time :P) so I'd be willing to look through it and the code, but I'm
not very experienced at programming so wouldn't be able to review the code
or anything, but I could have a look at the game itself.
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On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 12:11, Paul B wrote:
> You didn't specify where the code actually is, presumably it's in SVN but
> after googling I don't really see it.

Good point. It's in SVN
atsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/playground/games/killbots. You'll need
kdelibs and libkdegames > 4.0.

> I played the Gnome version and thought it was ok (not a great game, but
> passes the time :P) so I'd be willing to look through it and the code, but I'm
> not very experienced at programming so wouldn't be able to review the code
> or anything, but I could have a look at the game itself.

That be great, thanks.

Parker
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[Paul B-2]

Ok I can't build it, I get a lot of linker errors in the form
"/home/paul/killbots/scene.cpp:400: undefined reference to
`KGamePopupItem::setMessageTimeout(int)'", they all refer to Games related
classes, it happens in mainwindow.cpp, scene.cpp and render.cpp.

Since it's all games related classes I'm assuming it's something wrong with my
setup and not your code (Since it's a linker error, and only happens for the
games related classes), could someone else test this?

I do have libkdegames-dev-kde4 installed, and I've built all other KDE games
from source so that doesn't appear to be the problem. I'm running Kubuntu
Hardy with KDE4.1.
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On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 12:51, Paul B wrote:

>
> Ok I can't build it, I get a lot of linker errors in the form
> "/home/paul/killbots/scene.cpp:400: undefined reference to
> `KGamePopupItem::setMessageTimeout(int)'", they all refer to Games related
> classes, it happens in mainwindow.cpp, scene.cpp and render.cpp.
>
> Since it's all games related classes I'm assuming it's something wrong with my
> setup and not your code (Since it's a linker error, and only happens for the
> games related classes), could someone else test this?
>
> I do have libkdegames-dev-kde4 installed, and I've built all other KDE games
> from source so that doesn't appear to be the problem. I'm running Kubuntu
> Hardy with KDE4.1.

I would guess that it's just not finding libkdegames. Did you try to
build just the Killbots directory, or did you do all of
playground/games. If not, try that.

I guess I'll have to figure out how to get Killbots to build on it's own.

Parker
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[Paul B-2]

On Wednesday 03 September 2008 17:43:03 Parker Coates wrote:
> I would guess that it's just not finding libkdegames. Did you try to
> build just the Killbots directory, or did you do all of
> playground/games. If not, try that.
>
> I guess I'll have to figure out how to get Killbots to build on it's own.
Well I built it anyway from playground a few days ago.

Pretty good game (I enjoyed it a lot more than the GNOME version, though I'm
pretty sure the rules are the same, maybe the interface just makes it seem
better?).
Anyway I've just completed round 20 of the game and it isn't doing anything,
says "Round Complete." in top right corner of board but isn't giving me a new
level or showing the High Scores list. Level 20 said board was full and reset
the enemy counter, So I assumed that it would just start again from the
original number of enemies and work it's way up again.
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On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 16:22, Paul B wrote:
> On Wednesday 03 September 2008 17:43:03 Parker Coates wrote:
>> I guess I'll have to figure out how to get Killbots to build on it's own.
> Well I built it anyway from playground a few days ago.

I just committed a change to CMakeLists.txt that I think should allow
the Killbots directory to build on its own.

> Pretty good game

Thanks. :)

> (I enjoyed it a lot more than the GNOME version, though I'm pretty sure the
> rules are the same, maybe the interface just makes it seem better?).

The rules are mostly the same. The major difference is that the
default Killbots grid is square and a bit smaller than in Gnome
Robots. Oh and the default Killbots ruleset let's you push more than
one junkheap at a time. I really should add a ruleset to match the
Gnome Robots behaviour.

> Anyway I've just completed round 20 of the game and it isn't doing anything,
> says "Round Complete." in top right corner of board but isn't giving me a new
> level or showing the High Scores list. Level 20 said board was full and reset
> the enemy counter, So I assumed that it would just start again from the
> original number of enemies and work it's way up again.

That's what it is supposed to do. I'll look into it. So you're saying
that at the beginning of round 20 the board full message showed up and
the round was restarted with the reset enemy count. But when you
completed round 20 the game froze? Is that correct? Did the app freeze
completely (cursor arrow didn't change, menus didn't work) or did it
just fail to start a new round.

I've never seen this happen before and I can't reproduce it here. Can
you reproduce it? The "Full" and "ZZZ Crowded" rulesets are handy for
testing this.

Thanks for the info,

Parker
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[Paul B-2]

On Saturday 06 September 2008 07:36:36 Parker Coates wrote:
> I've never seen this happen before and I can't reproduce it here. Can
> you reproduce it? The "Full" and "ZZZ Crowded" rulesets are handy for
> testing this.

I can't reproduce it with either of those rulesets, it happened with the
default ruleset. I'm trying the Killbots ruleset again but obvious I can't
guarantee that i'll get to that stage any time soon.

Only the board was unresponsive, I could start a new game, use the menus and
view high scores etc. But nothing happened within the game and no high score
dialog appeared, even though it had beat my previous high scores.
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