MineWars Game

MineWars is a competitive multiplayer real-time strategy game with PvP combat based on Minesweeper and Civilization-like macro gameplay.

The game has been in design and development on-and-off for a few years, and has gone through several design iterations, prototypes, and rewrites during that time. Those old versions are not publicly available.

This repo hosts the current version of the game, that is being developed in an effort to finally make a public alpha release of the game. :)

The current state is WIP and this version of the game is not playable yet. Stay tuned for updates.

How to build and run

Note: I develop the game while working in macOS or WSL2. Everything in this repo assumes either a Linux or macOS environment.

Client App

To build and run the game client (macOS, non-WSL2 Linux, Windows native):

cargo run

If you are on Windows, there is a script you can use instead, to cross-compile and run a Windows-native EXE from within WSL2 (uses the -gnu Rust Toolchain):

./setup-cross-wsl2.sh # first time only
./cross-wsl2.sh

This gives you a game client capable of playing the classic Minesweeper game modes (both singleplayer and multiplayer), playback of MineWars replay files, map editor, etc. You cannot play the real MineWars game mode.

Release Builds

To prepare release builds with maximum optimizations and everything:

./build-release.sh {win,mac,lin}

(specify your OS and be sure to actually run it on the specified OS)

The final files will be in ./release/.

Server

If you want to play multiplayer, you also need the Host server.

But first! You need TLS certificates! The mw_certgen tool in this repo can be used to generate them in the correct format as expected by MineWars. To make your life easier during development, we provide a script to just generate a full set of certificates for every possible use case that might be needed. Just run:

./gen_dev_certs.sh

This should create the cfg/cert folder and fill it with certificates and keys. The sample configs in cfg are already set up to work with the certificates generated by the above script, so you don't need to do anything else.

Now you can build and run the Host server using a sample config:

cargo run --bin mw_hostsrv -- --config cfg/simple_minesweeper.cfg

This will build the open-source Host server and run it with the example config that provides a single session of multiplayer Minesweeper on localhost:13370 with no authentication (allow any client to join or spectate). It will use the development certificates found in cfg/cert.

To play on the server, launch the game client you built above, and navigate to: Main Menu -> Play LAN -> Connect to Server. Enter:

• Server Address: localhost
• Server Port: 13370
• Session ID: 0

Alternatively, press ~ to open the dev console and enter the command:

connect localhost:13370 0

Settings

The game client stores some configs/settings in your OSs standard location for user configuration files:

• Windows: C:\Users\you\AppData\Roaming\IyesGames\MineWars
• Mac: /Users/you/Library/Preferences/com.iyesgames.MineWars/
• Linux: /home/you/.config/minewars/

If you want to change settings that are not (yet) changeable from in-game UIs, you know where to look. :)

(And also if you want to delete them, so they don't litter your filesystem, if you never want to play/develop MineWars again.)

The game does not create any other files on your system.

Documentation

The main body of documentation is a mdbook, sources in doc/. It contains detailed game design documents and specifications. To render and read the book:

mdbook --open

Some parts (but far from all) of the source code contain Rustdoc comments. To generate API docs, run:

cargo doc --features dev --open

License

The majority of the game code is Free, Open-Source Software. All code in this repo is dual-licensed as MIT/Apache-2.

The game also has proprietary parts. Those are in a separate private repo. Any official builds of the game (as distributed via official channels) are proprietary.

You can compile an open-source build of the game using just this repo, without the proprietary parts. It will have limited functionality (notably, you will not be able to play the main multiplayer game mode). See here for more info.

cargo run --features dev

(the dev feature enables extra functionality not present in release builds)

The minewars-proprietary-shim repo is what makes this possible, by providing open-source stubs that will be used instead of the real proprietary code.

Official builds of the game are also made from this repo, but with the real proprietary code instead of the stubs. This repo here is not just a code dump, this is where the actual development happens. If you make contributions to the open-source code here, your contributions will be included (and you will be credited for them) in official builds of the game.

Source Code

The game is implemented in the Rust programming language. The client is made with the Bevy game engine, but also uses tokio in the background for networking. The servers do not use Bevy, and are pure tokio.

Given that this is a multiplayer game, and there are many parts to it (game client, servers, tooling, etc.), this repo contains many Rust crates:

• Top-level (minewars): the main game client binary
• bin/: other binaries and tools
  • mw_hostsrv: the dedicated game server
  • mw_hostrpc: CLI tool for controlling and managing the Host server
  • mw_authsrv: server for non-gameplay multiplayer services (accounts, lobbies, matchmaking, etc.)
  • mw_certgen: CLI tool for generating encryption certificates
  • mw_datatool: CLI tool for working with the MineWars data format
• lib/: supporting libraries:
  • mw_common: common code for everything
  • mw_app: the open-source part of the client
  • mw_host: the open-source part of the Host server
  • mw_auth: the open-source part of the Auth server
  • mw_dataformat: co/dec for the format used for gameplay data (both replay/scenario files and over-the-wire gameplay)
  • mw_proto_host: protocol between the client/player and Host server
  • mw_proto_auth: protocol between the client/player and Auth server
  • mw_proto_hostrpc: RPC protocol for the Host server
  • mw_proto_hostauth: protocol between Host and Auth
  • mw_game_minesweeper: the various Minesweeper game modes (not MineWars)
• cfg/: example config files and certificates for testing/development

Crates from the Proprietary Repo (not publicly available, just stubbed):

• mw_app_proprietary: proprietary parts of the client app
• mw_host_proprietary: proprietary parts of the Host server
• mw_auth_proprietary: proprietary parts of the Auth server
• mw_game_minewars: the full-fledged MineWars game mode

The top-level crate (minewars) just combines mw_app and (optionally) mw_app_proprietary (not in this repo) to create a single executable binary. All of the actual code for the client app lives in those crates.

Similarly:

• mw_hostsrv creates a binary out of mw_host and (optionally) mw_host_proprietary
• mw_authsrv creates a binary out of mw_auth and (optionally) mw_auth_proprietary

Needless to say, everything is very WIP. Some of those crates don't have much working code yet.

Assets

This repo contains some basic assets needed to run MineWars.

• assets/font/Sansation-*.ttf: SIL Open Font License
• assets/font/Ubuntu-*.ttf: Ubuntu Font License
• assets/splash/bevy.png: Bevy logo used with permission from Bevy Project
• assets/splash/iyes*.png: IyesGames Logo; contact for permission to use outside of MineWars
• assets/gfx2d/*: CC-BY-SA 4.0
• assets/gfx3d/*: CC-BY-SA 4.0
• assets/locale/*: CC-BY-SA 4.0
• assets/ui/*: CC-BY-SA 4.0
• assets/audio/*: CC-BY-SA 4.0

The assets-src folder contains the source files (Blender, Inkscape, etc.) used to generate the various assets that are not sourced externally. There are also some scripts to process them if needed.

The official builds of the game contain extra/different assets, that are proprietary. If you have an official copy of the game, feel free to use those assets for private use with open-source builds of the game. They should be compatible. Just copy them into the assets folder.