Battle City

Build a city. Hire a team. Orb the enemy.

You’ll Never Believe This…

open source

Dear Minions, I’d like to Bribe You…

by Leave a Comment

Dear minions of Battle City,

Since December I have been asking for help to save Battle City. I even tried recruiting development help and giving ownership of the game to the community by making Battle City open source.

All of these attempts failed.

That’s when I decided to build a giant space laser and annihilate the Battle City Server once and for all. People responded well to this. In fact, in early May the server had the third busiest day in recent history…

But all good things come to an end. The threat of annihilation is no longer effective, nobody plays again.

So, I’ve decided to try a new tactic. Bribery.

If there is an average of 10 players online in June, I will release version 4.0.0 of Battle City.

Also, if you contact me by June 15th, I will give you the tank of your choice in-game.

Your evil overlord,

– Deceth

P.S. If no donations are received in June, I’m still going to blow up the server June 26th because I didn’t build a giant space laser for nothing… muahah 😉

—
Battle City is an open source online tank wars game. Orb the enemy to win!
https://battlecity.org

Battle City is now Open Source – Join the Community!

by Leave a Comment

Have you ever wanted to get your hands on the source code of the worlds most awesome online game? Now you can! Battle City has officially been released under GPLv3.

For those concerned, fear not! Looble will remain supreme commander of the master source version of Battle City. What does this mean? It means we will maintain an official release of the game and continue to operate the Classic Battle City Server (for another month unless you save it!). It also means that anyone can now contribute to the project, run their own server or even start their own unique game based on Battle City. Have a question? Ask the Battle City Google Group or post a message on the Battle City Forums!

What is Battle City?

Battle City is a very fun online game. Players build cities or join cities built by other players. Once in-game, player characters are represented by tanks. The city buildings produce items which equip the tanks with improved weaponry like bombs, cloaks, medkits, etc… The goal is to destroy enemy cities before being destroyed! To find out more, check out the video or visit https://battlecity.org.

Battle City source code on GitHub

GitHub is a social coding website; it’s like Facebook for programmers! By hosting the Battle City source code on GitHub it’s easy for anybody to join or follow progress on the project. If you want to contribute to the development of Battle City, create an account on GitHub and get the Battle City source code.

Why is Battle City Open Source? Because Open Source Matters!

Over the years I’ve learned a lot working with open source. Open source matters to me. It has helped me get ahead in my career by allowing me to gain valuable work experience. I hope that by releasing Battle City as open source, it will now be able to help and teach someone else. Many people have contributed to making this possible, I’m only a small part of the puzzle. Thank you everyone for your contributions over the years!

But Seriously, as an Evil Overlord, how does this help you achieve world domination?

It’s actually quite brilliant. By officially releasing Battle City as open source, I hope to attract developers to join the Battle City community. Every evil empire needs intelligent programmers. With these new minions working on Battle City, I free up my own time to work on the next piece of my plan for world conquest.

Why would programmers want to be a minion of the Looble Empire?

I may be evil, but I’m not a bad guy from a minions perspective. Yes, I do want to take over the world, and yes, I will always act in my own self-interest in order to achieve that goal. However, I am very interested in keeping my minions happy. I don’t have time to deal with mutiny or other sorts of revolts against my leadership.

So why serve Looble? Because you will be rewarded. Because your overlord knows he cannot conquer the world without your help and will therefore do whatever it takes to retain your services.

If you’ve ever contributed to Battle City, add Looble to your resume on LinkedIn. I’ll be happy to give you a recommendation. Open source matters to my plans for world domination and you deserve recognition for your contributions.

Open source projects count as work experience. Employers love hiring individuals who show interest in software development outside of school or paid employment. And I need moles in these companies.

Follow me on Twitter or join the mailing list

For daily updates related to Battle City and open source, follow me on Twitter. For weekly/monthly updates from Looble, join the mailing list or subscribe to the Looble RSS feed.

Save the Battle City Server – Make a Donation!

by Leave a Comment

The Battle City Server is in trouble – it’s broke. Broke as in out of gas, out of supplies, out of money. We’ve gone under – into the red, into the world of debt where server death is imminent.

But there is hope.

You have the power to save the Battle City Server. You can make a difference. If you want the Battle City Server to stay up and running 24/7, please make a donation.

Without donations the server will R.I.P.

Battle City will live on even if we can no longer afford to keep the server running – I’ve made sure of that. The game is now open source. Anybody can contribute to development or host their own server.

If we can’t afford the current 24/7 server, we’ll have to rely on members of the community hosting servers from home. It’s a cheaper solution, but it’s not the best solution. I think having a dedicated server available 24/7 is the best option, and if you agree, please make a donation so we can keep it up and running!

The current Battle City Server has been running since November 2007 – it’s already been two years! How has it survived this long? Thanks to generous members of the the community.

Thank you Nightwish, Ender, wdgoulas, Vindkast, Surge, Jizohn, Alex, Corey, Gunman, darkluigi07, OldSchool, Incyte, Spyderman, Rushing, Xeva, Bartsie, Rage_Against, Mad_Orber & Alton. Together we have raised $719.76. Including ads on the Battle City website, we’ve raised a total of $769.19.

$769.19 is a lot of money. But it’s all gone. Total costs of operating Battle City as of today are $1001.98. We’re short $232.79. Since I also want to keep the server up and running, I’ve paid that amount myself as a donation. Normally I donate in the form of time and updates. I haven’t contributed any updates to Battle City in the last year so the least I could do is make a donation to cover several months of costs.

I need your help. I’ve donated as much as I can.

These days the server is empty a lot – but it’s there. If you want to log-on to Battle City, you can. If you want to organize a battle, you can. If you just want to take your tank for a drive and build a city for nostalgia sake, you can. I like knowing Battle City is up an running, even if I’m not able to log-on very often. I know there are others who feel the same – who want the server available 24/7 even if they no longer play.

If you want to keep the Battle City Server up and running, please make a donation today. Every 30$ donation adds an extra month of life to the server. All donations received will go directly to covering costs for the next year.

Thanks.

—
Battle City is a free online tank wars game. Orb the enemy to win!
https://battlecity.org

Is Battle City on the Verge of a Return?

by Leave a Comment

Battle City is an old action and strategy multiplayer game created by CodeHammer back in the 90’s. After it was taken down, several different groups have tried to bring the game back to life unsuccessfully.

Back near the beginning of 2004, a new team of individuals decided to start up a Battle City project on Sourceforge. While the project is inspired by the original Battle City by CodeHammer, this is a completely unique game written from scratch in C++.

Battle City has always been one of my favorite games. I have therefore joined the project in order to help with design and documentation. I’ve also been keeping the forums busy! 🙂

The project, led by Tr4c3r and consisting of team members ReMoTe, RizeUp and SeeleJager got off to a good start. I wrote some documentation for them describing the game and features as best as I could remember to help them program it as closely to the original as possible.

However, after v0.0.4 was released things started to slow down. The good news was that even though the project was starting to look like it might not continue, unlike with previous attempts, the community would be left with source code that someone could eventually pick up and possibly complete!

Recently, ReMoTe has been in contact with me to inform me that he has continued working on the project on his own. He has sent me a demo and it’s looking good! There may be hope for a re-birth of Battle City in the near future after all!

I’ll definitely continue providing any information needed to help have the project completed!