Netztank
A new classroom was built for SRZ, where the PCs were connected through a network.
There was a game called "Nettank", which was quite fun to play, but had several issues.
The game works like this:
- Each player commands a little tank from a sky perspective.
- You can shoot several rockets, which you can control though the direction of your cannon.
- The challenge is to maneuver the rocket though the labyrinth to one of the opponents without hitting a wall or getting shot by someone else's rocket.
details
The major problem was, that it used a shared file for network communications and after some security upgrades it was
no longer playable in SRZ.
A new implementation was needed.
Netztank (a German translation of Nettank) was written entirely in x86 assembler. It uses IPX sockets for network communications and run without a dedicated server or player sessions. Up to 16 players are able to play against each other. The tanks of each player were distinguishable through color coding. Each player has to select one unique color and the map for all players has to be the same. If these conditions are not met, the game is quite unfair. I also created a little tool, that was able to create all 16 possible rotation levels of the tank and cannon sprites. After the game was quite a success in SRZ and several schools, I had to write a tool that blocks the communications of the game and distribute it to the teachers.
Netztank (a German translation of Nettank) was written entirely in x86 assembler. It uses IPX sockets for network communications and run without a dedicated server or player sessions. Up to 16 players are able to play against each other. The tanks of each player were distinguishable through color coding. Each player has to select one unique color and the map for all players has to be the same. If these conditions are not met, the game is quite unfair. I also created a little tool, that was able to create all 16 possible rotation levels of the tank and cannon sprites. After the game was quite a success in SRZ and several schools, I had to write a tool that blocks the communications of the game and distribute it to the teachers.
history
| Apr. 1996 | The project to create a Nettank clone was launched. |
| June 1996 | The first version was released. |
| Jan. 1997 | The second version was released. New feature: You can control the cannon independent of the basement. |
| June 1997 | Some combatants and myself created a C++ port of the game. It was several times larger and added nothing to the game play, therefore it was never released. |
| 1999 | Two friends started to create a new C++ windows clone of the game. Unfortunately the network thing never worked stable. |
| 2000 | Netztank 3: I created a port using the Oskar engine.
The game play was changed, as you no longer have to hack your keyboard as fast as possible. We played some fun sessions, during our demo making, but never finished the game. |