Space Wars

Space Wars is 4X game. You can explore the map, expand your empire, exploit the resources and exterminate you enemies. This all happens in a fictional time line, where the human race has made its way into space and had contact with other species. And once you are tired of fighting, you can still engage in role play.

You can find the game at http://game.spacewars.ch.

For all those who are interested in this kind of game, please sign-up. The link to the form can be found right below the login. And of course, if you have any ideas regarding Space Wars, let me know. There is the bug tracker or the forum.

Why I started with Space Wars

I once had the great to create my own game. I then started to learn about PHP. Once I understood the instruction of the how to I used, I made my first login function (took me about a week). I then started with the first version of Space Wars.

The GUI was not the most beautiful and only in German.

This version was already working like a game, but missed some essential parts like research. The map was two dimensional and did not have too many stars on it (I think it was actually just one).

At some point the code was not maintainable anymore. This happened because of my lack of programming skills. But I learned how to use vi. (Yes, I wrote about half of the code in vi ?)

Failure and restart

A second version was developed fast, with the idea of making the space three dimensional. This required some work with arrays, which I did not understand at that time. Thankfully I had help from my father.

The GUI was still only in German and I had to realise, that there is a reason everyone else only does a two dimensional representation.

When starting with this version I was in the apprenticeship as computer engineer. When talking with some other students, I learned about new programming techniques.

And so came number three

I started to learn about object oriented programming. The learning curve was quite steep in the beginning, but I eventually understood the concept. Somewhere around that point was when I could compete in the regional championship for Web Design, leading the path to the national championship. (I achieved a lot thanks to Space Wars…) I did not end up in front, but I was the only of my class who actually got there.

The third version is the one currently active and in development. The GUI is on the move to a more modern look and feel with mobile support coming up more and more. There are still some glitches that happen because some stuff is just improvised and not everything is yet standardised, but that should be done at some point in the closer future.

The new GUI also supports multiple languages. At the moment there are English and German, but of somebody wishes to have it in Klingon, it would be possible.