README

Introduction

This project, named baltek-the-program, implements the BALTEK board game, using HTML and JavaScript.

BALTEK is a turn-based board game, inspired from football. Here are its principles:

• Game easily made by hand,
• defined by a few rules,
• without randomizing device.
• The game allows several actions per turn.
• The ball moves faster than the footballers.
• The coordination of footballers is essential.

The name of the game is built using sounds of the words ball (BAL) and technical (TEK).

The rules series 3.x explores changes of rules in order to provide a richer set of tactics.

Usage

In order to play the game:

• First method: find the latest release from the blog Lucas Borboleta and click on the proposed index.html link.

• Second method: download the latest release from there and open the index.html file using your web browser.

License

If you intent to derive or to sell either a text, a product or a software from this work, then read the LICENSE document.

Used works are listed in the CREDITS document.

Contributing

Changes regarding either the internationalization or the coding are welcome; see the CONTRIBUTING document.

See also the ROADMAP document.

The past and present contributors are listed in the CONTRIBUTORS document.

History

During year 2015, the rules of the game have been tested within the limited circle of my family and office colleagues. The rules have been found balanced and fun.

Such tests were performed using handcrafted material (paper sheet and wooden pieces). See also the pictures from the blog Lucas Borboleta.

By end of year 2015, a software prototype has been started, but with a slow rhythm. I used this project for learning about JavaScript and improving my skills in software design and automated testing.

Since Summer 2017, the full rules have been implemented and two humans sitting in front of the same computer can play a BALTEK match.

During Fall 2017, the effort was on translating of the rules text and selection of licenses.

In October 2017, the description of the rules was moved in a separate project, named baltek-the-rules in order to finalize their translations and to promote them.

In March 2018, two browsers can be synchronized thanks to TogetherJS in order to realize the mode "two remote BALTEK players".

In May 2018, the design for AI implementation started

In March 2020, attempt to increase the game drama by including more pieces in the field as well as more sprint bonuses.

See also the CHANGELOG.

Documentation

All other documentation files can be found in the docs folder.