GNU Robots - Program A Little Robot

★ wanayoo — archive 1999 http://www.gnu.org/software/robots/robots.html

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GNU Robots

GNU Robots 0.95 is now available for download! This provides several fixes for detecting GNU Guile during the `configure' process. As of this release, I really consider GNU Robots `version 1' software (no longer in beta), but I don't want to give it that release number until I give the game some new graphics!

I've started a little programming contest for GNU Robots. There are no prizes (sorry.) Submit your GNU Robots program, and see how well you compare!

GNU Robots is a game/diversion where you construct a program for a little robot, then watch him explore a world. The world is filled with baddies that can hurt you, objects that you can bump into, and food that you can eat. The goal of the game is to collect as many prizes as possible before are killed by a baddie or you run out of energy. GNU Robots (including source) will be released under the GNU General Public License.

The GNU Robots playing field is filled with food (increases energy), prizes (to increase your score), walls (which you can bump into), and baddies (which can inflict damage.) Here are some examples to show you what I mean.

To make the program easier to design and implement, I have decided to let the robot program be written in a text file, so that advanced programmers don't have to limit themselves to a visual programming interface. The language will be Scheme, which provides for flexibility in writing your programs. For non-programmers, there will also be a visual programming interface, which will generate Scheme code.

GNU Robots uses GNU Guile as the language back-end (Scheme). This will make the GNU Robots game engine more consistent with other GNU projects, as it will use the same extension language.

For a list of features that will find its way into GNU Robots, please see the release plan.

For a list of current features, please see the documentation.

Answers to your other questions will be found in the FAQ.

If you would like to help with GNU Robots, please read my to do list.

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