In the Kal-eij-dhor tavern, two dwarven clans are about to face a heated argument.
No one knows exactly what the problem is... but everyone know that there is only one way to solve it.
The ancient ritual of the Khan-birr-ha begins. The two clans will risk their honor and their ancestors', defending their clan's beer while they try to take the rival's barrel.
Dwarven Tavern is a node-based game played with bots. It consists of a set of rules and a server that provides with a socket interface, a simple protocol and a web visor.
To play, you only need to code a bot that follows the protocol.
In Dwarven Tavern, the dwarves have to drink all the beer they can. The first team that takes the other team's barrel to their zone scores a point, so the dwarves will need to divide and protect their barrel while they try to get the other team's.
At the begining of each turn, the server sends the position of the dwarves and the barrels to the next active player. The player should send the movements of its dwarves in return and then, the server will calculate the result and send it to the other player. Each dwarf moves one square per turn.
Each dwarf can move in four directions, NORTH, EAST, SOUTH and WEST. If the destiny square is occupied, the dwarf will push in the direction of the movement.
A dwarf can push a barrel or another dwarf. No matter what it pushes, if the destiny square it's free at the end of the movement, the dwarf will move into it.
If a dwarf pushes a barrel, the barrel will move one square in the direction of the push.
If one dwarf pushes another, the pushed dwarf will be thrown back with a random pattern. When a dwarf is thrown back, it will move two squares back, one back and one left or one back and one right.
If there is another dwarf blocking the way, the barrel will thrown him back following the same rules described above. If there is another dwarf behind the thrown one, it will be thrown too, and so on.
A dwarf can't push a barrel into another barrel, so if it tries to, the movement will be considered wasted.
To avoid blocking situations, a barrel cannot be moved to the limits of the tavern. This way, a dwarf will always be able to push a barrel freely.
The server has a configuration file available in server/config.json. The most interesting properties are:
port: the port where we want to listen for bot connections.httpPort: the port where we will be serving the web visor.widthandheight: the tavern size.botsPerPlayer: the number of bots each player has.pointsToWin: the number of points a team needs to score to win the match.
To install the server dependencies, you will need to have node.js and npm installed in your system.
Clone the repository, move inside the server folder and execute:
npm installInside the server folder, run:
node app.jsTo close the server, use CTRL+C.
To make a bot, we need to implement three stages: connect to the server, create and join simulations and play our turns.
Despite the comunication with the server is done through TCP sockets, all the messages are sent formatted as JSON to ease the parsing.
The first thing our bot needs to do is to connect to the server. The following examples are written in javascript and obtained from the dummy bot.
server = net.connect({port: 9000});After the connection, we can create a new simulation or connect to an existing one.
To create a new simulation, we have to send the following message:
// Client message
{
"type": "create-simulation"
}
// Server response
{
"type": "ready",
"simulationId": "64lfbem"
}We can join a simulation knowing it's ID or join a random simulation that accepts newcommers. If we don't know the ID, we just remove it from the message:
// Join request
{
"type": "join-simulation",
"nick": "John Doe",
"simulationId": "64lfbem",
"names": [
"Rhun Diamondfighter",
"Balgairen Marble-Flame",
"Tavio Bluefeldspar",
"Caith Scarletjasper",
"Riagan Rubygold"
]
}
// Server response
{
"type": "game-info",
"simulationId": "64lfbem",
"team": "team2",
"width": 21,
"height": 21
}We use the names list to send the names of our dwarves, and the nick to identify our bot during the game.
When it's our turn, the server will send our bot the complete state of the simulation as reference, and it will wait for a response.
The server's message has the following attributes:
type: it can be turn, loss-game and win-game, depending on the state of the game and if we lost or won (this logic is explained in the End of the game section).state: an object containing the state of the game, resulting from the other player's last movement.state.barrels: both barrels and their positions inside the tavern.state.team1andstate.team2: the dwarven's positions of both teams.
"barrels": {
"team1": {
"coords": {
"x": 8,
"y": 9
}
},
"team2": {
"coords": {
"x": 11,
"y": 9
}
}
}"team1": [
{
"id": 1,
"name": "Rhun Diamondfighter",
"coords": {
"x": 8,
"y": 7
}
},
{
"id": 2,
"name": "Balgairen Marble-Flame",
"coords": {
"x": 6,
"y": 9
}
},
{
"id": 3,
"name": "Tavio Bluefeldspar",
"coords": {
"x": 7,
"y": 8
}
},
{
"id": 4,
"name": "Caith Scarletjasper",
"coords": {
"x": 10,
"y": 8
}
},
{
"id": 5,
"name": "Riagan Rubygold",
"coords": {
"x": 15,
"y": 8
}
}
]A complete message looks like this:
{
"type": "turn",
"state": {
"barrels": {
"team1": {
"coords": {
"x": 8,
"y": 9
}
},
"team2": {
"coords": {
"x": 11,
"y": 9
}
}
},
"team1": [
{
"id": 1,
"name": "Rhun Diamondfighter",
"coords": {
"x": 8,
"y": 7
},
}
{
"id": 2,
"name": "Balgairen Marble-Flame",
"coords": {
"x": 6,
"y": 9
}
},
{
"id": 3,
"name": "Tavio Bluefeldspar",
"coords": {
"x": 7,
"y": 8
}
},
{
"id": 4,
"name": "Caith Scarletjasper",
"coords": {
"x": 10,
"y": 8
}
},
{
"id": 5,
"name": "Riagan Rubygold",
"coords": {
"x": 15,
"y": 8
}
}
],
"team2": [
{
"id": 6,
"name": "Anwas Marble-Track",
"coords": {
"x": 5,
"y": 11
}
},
{
"id": 7,
"name": "Kieran Forge-Ash",
"coords": {
"x": 8,
"y": 11
}
},
{
"id": 8,
"name": "Aproderick Moon-Fist",
"coords": {
"x": 8,
"y": 10
}
},
{
"id": 9,
"name": "Dunmore Slatetapper",
"coords": {
"x": 11,
"y": 10
}
},
{
"id": 10,
"name": "Patrick Topazchipper",
"coords": {
"x": 13,
"y": 11
}
}
]
}
}When we finish calculating our dwarven movements, we have to send a response to the server. Our bot's response should look like this:
{
"type" : "player-turn",
"actions": [
{ "botId": 1, "type": "MOVE", "direction": "WEST" },
{ "botId": 2, "type": "MOVE", "direction": "EAST" },
{ "botId": 3, "type": "MOVE", "direction": "NORTH" },
{ "botId": 4, "type": "MOVE", "direction": "NORTH" },
{ "botId": 5, "type": "MOVE", "direction": "NORTH" }
]
}When the game ends, the server will send us the winner movement as a normal state message, but with a different type. Instead of turn, the type will be loss-game if we lost the game, or win-game if we won.
There is a bot example in bots/dummy.
When the Dwarven Tavern server is up and running, it starts a web server with a simulation visor. The server starts by default listening the port 8080. We can use this server to watch the tavern arguments and follow the exciting IA powered fights.
To connect to a simulation, we need to wait until there is a dwarf clan inside the tavern room. The room will be deleted when the simulation is over.
http://localhost:8080
This game was developed during the stunning and breathtaking Kaleidos IV ΠWEEK (July 2013), and (until the opposite is proved) we won! This wouldn't be possible without the time and resources of Kaleidos Open Source. Thank you!
A lot of the game resources are from the interwebs, thank you too!
- Sprites & game background: http://vxresource.wordpress.com/about/
- Dwarf voices: http://opengameart.org/content/drunk-dwarf-voice-pack
- You can get some AWESOME dwarf names here: http://dwarf.namegeneratorfun.com/
- Fonts: http://www.dafont.com/dwarven-stonecraft.font
- Openclipart: http://openclipart.org/media/people/liftarn
- Background: google search image without copyright info nor references. Thank you anonymous fella!
- Dwarven Tavern logo: handmade with care and love by @alotor, CC by-sa
