http://www.roboforge.net/tender.htm
Seems the former Java3D reference title is not doing so well…
Well it may have looked quite nice, but the actual fights always seemed pretty mundane - robots would just barge into each other mindlessly whenever I watched the game 
Gotta have a good game in the first place 
Don’t I know it
Cas 
Grab the free download and check it out…
Go to Tournaments and look at some of the past All Time Greatest battles.
There are some clever designs in there and interesting AI.
Although I admit I never got the AI to work the way I wanted it to… but I think I just didn’t know what I was doing.
The autonomous nature of the robots is what I felt was cool. Kind of like those TV shows Robot Wars or Battle Bots… but instead of just radio controlled toys… you had to program the bots to fight for themselves… much more entertaining for a geek like me :).
I wonder why a Linux version never materialized? I suppose if they are successful selling it that someone could finish it off with Linux and Mac ports… There’s got to be a few nerds in the Linux community that would love it ;D
Winning real $$$ in tournaments would also be cool.
[quote]I wonder why a Linux version never materialized? I suppose if they are successful selling it that someone could finish it off with Linux and Mac ports… There’s got to be a few nerds in the Linux community that would love it ;D
Winning real $$$ in tournaments would also be cool.
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Probably because noones proved theres a Linux market that pays $$ for software As it happens I knwo this rpoduct pretty well and porting to Linux (or Mac now that we have Java3D) should be a weekend effort for anyone who knows those platforms. (It has a total of 3 lines of C code, the rest is java.)
And yeah its a damn cool product… the later versions even perform pretty well
IMO they suffered from the following problems:
(1) A niche market. Coder-gamers is a pretty small niche.
(2) A lack of advertising/marketing budget. Because it was a niche, they couldn’t interest a publisher. Going it alone they didn’t have the marketing funds.
(3) Dated graphics. They weren’t cutting edge to start with (though their models and textures I thought were nice), and the game is something like 3 or 4 years old now.
Finally keep in mind that its not a total flop, it DID survive a few years, and I still see it on the shelf at Frys. Not bad for an indie game.
[quote]Probably because noones proved theres a Linux market that pays $$ for software As it happens I knwo this rpoduct pretty well and porting to Linux (or Mac now that we have Java3D) should be a weekend effort for anyone who knows those platforms. (It has a total of 3 lines of C code, the rest is java.)
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For a weekend of work it would be worth finding out what the market was like. Maybe I’ll buy them and give it a try ?
It should have been doen as an educational game…
set it in terms of lgic, planning, strategy learning in education and you have a wellpanened niche seller…
There are educational gaming companies looking for this type of work…