Grobots is a real-time strategy programming game, in which you write programs to control teams of robots as they forage, reproduce and fight. It runs on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. Read the overview or look at some screenshots to learn what's going on.
The programs that control the robots are called sides, and are written in a simple dialect of Forth. There are many sides to play with, and tournament results to ponder. (The current champion is ISI.)
The learning curve is steep, and the documentation is, unfortunately, poor. We're moving it to a wiki, so you can help fix this.
The main discussion forum is the mailing list. If you have a new side you want to show to other users or enter in tournaments, send it there, or post it to the wiki. The authors like to hear from users, but can be very slow to respond.
Grobots is free software licensed under the GPL. Maintenance from the original authors is sporadic, but you can do it yourself: download source and binaries.
(Devon 20140724) Mike Anderson has translated Grobots to Java. This means it now runs on many more platforms, including Unixes and probably some phones. Source; executable.
The simulation is complete, fast, and compatible with the C++ version: it can run existing sides with essentially the same results. Some GUI windows are not yet implemented, in particular the minimap, but that's not a serious problem. It's already quite usable. Congratulations, Mike!
(Devon 20120804) After years of very little maintenance, I've recently improved the graphics and statistics and default window layout and performance, and Mike Anderson has made keyboard shortcuts work on Windows. This level of activity is unlikely to continue, but you can get up-to-date builds below.
There will be a tournament on August 13, so please send me your sides, or post them on the wiki.
[Old news]
shot-type (6) instead of the default (0).
Grobots is free software distributed under the GNU General Public License. There are currently four builds:
There's also a Java port, which is compatible with the C++ version.
These screenshots show the colors but not the action. Grobots is more interesting in motion.
