BattleZone

Indulge yourself in this riveting game of tanks, bullets, and strategy.

Features

  • Fully Multiplayer, with up to as many players as your poor computer and LAN can handle
  • 3D GUI thanks to the JavaFX API
  • Unlimited game play, (since as of now there is still no 'WIN' condition), so the round literally never ends until you disconnect

Running the game

  1. First you must ensure you have the latest version of Java installed (or at least Java 8).
    • You can download it here
    • If you don't know what Java is or how to check if it is installed just go to the above link and download it anyways, (never hurts to have the latest version)
  2. Download the game Zip folder and extract it somewhere convenient for you.
    • Sorry but there currently isn't a simple installer for the game, so this is the only way to play currently.
  3. Inside the folder you will find 2 'JAR' files, one for running the server and one for the client. Multiplayer is currently the only mode in the game so you must have a server up and running in order to play. There are two ways to start up the server:
    • Simply double click on the BattlezoneServer.jar file and it will spin up a server in the background for you.
    • Or, you can open up a command prompt, navigate to the folder your jar files are in, and run the following command:
    • java -jar BattlezoneServer.jar
    Note: You can turn off the server by simply using Ctrl+C in the Command Prompt, or if you really want to be savage just go to your Task Manager and kill all your Java processes.
  4. Once you have your server up then you can start up the game by double clicking on the BattlezoneClient.jar
  5. If you are the one who is running the server you can just use the default IP and PORT settings to connect to the game, just hit the "PLAY" button and you will connect.
    You'll need to give your friends your IP address if they want to connect to your server so you can play together.
    • If the concept of computer networking and IP addresses is totally foreign to you, you can read up about it here.
    • If you're still lost, you can literally just google "what is my IP address" and they will tell you :)

Game Play

  1. The goal of the game is simple, shoot the other tanks... As mentioned, there currently (but will be in the future) isn't a way to win, so you can just play to your hearts content.
  2. Controls:
    • To move just use W, A, S, & D (up, left, down, right)
    • To fire press the spacebar

More technical stuff

  • If you want to know more about how the game works, I'd suggest running this from your cmd line. As you'll be able to see all the debug output the server or clients are sending / receiving.
  • If you reeeally want to know how it works, just hit me up and I'll be happy to send you some code.

Release Notes: 9/6/18

  • Animation now plays showing the tank exploding when hit.
  • Added 'random verb generator' to make the kill messages more entertaining.

Release Notes: 8/25/18

  • Added in basic score tally, e.g. kills, deaths, etc.
  • Server now sends message of who killed who, e.g. "Franny annihilated General Tsao".