Goto: Hell. A PC programming game where you program robots to fight other robots

Hi everyone.

Goto: Hell
Goto Hell is a programming game I've started working on in Unity, the objective of the game is to program a robot that will then fight other robots that other players have programmed in a virtual arena. It's similar to games like robocode but more modern and with more features.

The game is currently in alpha, please have a look at the early feature demo video.

Video:
[video=youtube_share;Lgx9Tqn_2ss]http://youtu.be/Lgx9Tqn_2ss

Currently the player writes script in their favourite text editor, saves the file in the games bot folder and then this script can be used in game.

I've written a robot API for the players to use, this consists of movement controls and firing the primary weapon but the player can also EMP their opponents, self destruct and even hack and inject their own custom virus' that the enemies bot will then run.

There are many balancing features, every weapon and tactic has penalties, for example to find the coordinates of the enemy player you need to run scans, there are currently two scans- sonar and thermal, sonar scans always return correct coordinates however they are also 2 seconds out of date, thermal scans will return up to date coords but can only do so if the enemy is leaving a large thermal footprint such as firing full power shots rather than low power shots. Using special weapons like EMP uses up most of your power and needs to recharge etc etc. There are many balancing features and more might be added.

The game is already multiplayer ready, you can upload your scripts to the goto hell server and other players can fight your bots, the winner and loser of the fights are updated on the database and a leaderboard is formed.

I'm really interested as to whether this is a game you'd be interested in playing, and if so what kind of features/gameplay mechanics would you like to see? Thanks guys.

 

That sounds amazing (and looks quite good already!)

It sounds like you are putting a lot of (realistic based) depth in as well which I would wager will lead to the 'easy to learn, hard to master' aspect.

I think a feature that would open up a lot more options would be group battles (2v2, 4v4 etc)
- Would open up more 'virus' options (eg swapping the enemy value so it fires on it's own team)
- Would open up 'role' scripts - assault, anti virus (eg. scan own robots for changes in code from the initial loaded file) etc.

Other possibilities:
Stealth options (thermal/sound cloaking, false signals etc)
Adding 3rd dimension (defensive burrowing and/or jump/hover etc)
Logistics/maintenance (managing ammo etc - possibly adding resupply point(s) in exposed positions)
Environmental hazards (may require additional sensors)

Robot hardware limitations
ie. robot CPU only able to execute code at a certain speed - complex code will be slower to execute than simple (eg. simple update loop is called every 0.01 ms, complex update loop may mean it is only called every 0.05 ms) -- Would add to the challenge, payoff between simple and effective or more complicated but risky. This would be better as an alternate competition mode(s) (like different classes of car racing)


Would definitely play this game and can see quite a hard core dedicated community springing up around it (chasing the unbeatable bot code). Will keep an eye on it and look forward to playable versions!

 

I really love this idea!

 

The idea is awesome. Please finish this game!

 

I could not resist sorry...

Also the game sounds awesome!

EDIT: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE FINISH THIS!

 

You need to be able to code behaviours in the app!

 

yes... otherwise it's just a Unity Editor clone...
and also, not many people will play this unless they have good knowledge of programming in Unity.
you should make the functions and let the player call the functions with his own parameters.

 

Disgree...
RoboCode is a good example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCode

There have been international competitions. The programming is not Unity specific, it can be used anything from an intro to programming for classes to massive scale 'professional' competitions.

 

That certainly gained popularity from the educational side.

I guess it depends what market you are going for. I think if you have to code to that level your main market needs to be educational. People aren't going to just do it for fun(well maybe some of us on these forums ).

I don't know what the correct development path is, but it really depends on your target audience.

 

This looks really cool and fun for the programmer types. With some kind of visual scripting system in game i think you'd be able to target a wider audience though.

I'd definetly like to try it.

 

After the feedback I've received from various places, I am going to work on a visual scripting tool that players use in-game, I've just started prototyping a node based editor kind of like shader forge, going to see if it makes sense to program the bots in this fashion!

 

would be interesting if you could edit code during the game itself to modify behavior, and have it be multiplayer so the other player could do the same. Also perhaps make API a little simpler.