ItsAllAGame

Assimilation

Assimilation is a prototype I wrote before writing the Smallrockets Assimilation, this game was a combination of ideas of games I liked, Risk and Othello, together with some multiplayer support, this is free for download.

The AI does not work but upto 8 player multiplayer does. I liked the idea but ended up simplifying it a hell of a lot for the final Assimilation but might as well make this available, someone, somewhere, may like it, I do.

Full help is included with the game, Runs on OpenGL.

!! NOTE : This version does not support AI !!

Seperate Server Process

The server process (SERVER.EXE) can be run seperately on a server
machine (XP,NT,9x,2000) with minimal processor overhead. Port number is 6112.

Upto 128 people can connect to the server process and a maximum of 16 games
with each a maximum of 8 players can be running concurrently on the same
server process.

CPU Usage

The games maximum CPU usage can be altered in game to allow other background
tasks to function using F1 to decrease by 10% and F2 increase by 10% (detailed
in game), by default the windowed version of the game runs at 50% max CPU
while fullscreen runs at 95%.

Game minimum requirements

- Direct X 6 or better
- 10 Meg diskspace
- Soundcard


Game Instruction Contents

The game instructions and control overview are detailed within the game and
are included here for completeness.


Aim

The rules of Assimilation are simple, to get the fastest domination of the
playing area. Each playing area is divided into a number of "zones", on the
World Domination scenario for example the zones are represented by continents.

To achieve domination a player must wholy own a zone , only their pieces must
be within that zone, to this end each player is given a fixed number of pieces
that are either pre-placed within the scenario or can be dropped by the player
(each round a set amount can be dropped defined by the scenario), or a mixture
of both.

Within each round each player takes a turn to move a set number of pieces
defined by the scenario , on some scenarios each piece can only be moved once
per round.

Pieces placed in that same round may not be moved until the next round.


Movement

Each piece can be moved within a hexagonal radius, if a piece is directly in
contact with an opposing piece it can destroy it by simply being placed in
top.

Alternatively a piece can jump opposing pieces in direct contact to assimilate
it and its direct neighbours. Thereby creating more pieces for the player,
each of the assimilated pieces may then still be moved with that round
creating a possible cascade affect of assimilation.

Crowned Pieces

Each time a piece assimilates others it will increase its assimilation count
and once 10 assimilations have occurred the piece becomes crowned.

The crowned piece can move twice the distance of normal pieces and can
assimilate by simply landing on other pieces without the need to jump over.


Ports

On certains scenarios areas known as ports allow a pieces to move great
distances across the playing area.


Zone ownership

Displayed in the top left of the screen is the zone ownership table, colour
keyed to the zones.

Status bar

The status bar displays each players score, number of moves left in a round,
number of pieces to drop per round and total number of pieces that can be
dropped.


Timer

Each player gets a scenerio dependant time allocation to perform their moves,
if they have not moved or dropped their pieces by the end of this time the
game automatically moves to the next player.


The Level Select Screen

If single player selected or level button in multiplayer screen selected the
level select screen is displayed, here the level can be selected for play as
well as the number of players and AI difficulty.

If in multiplayer the player positions not taken by human players the
computer will play them.


The Multiplayer Lobby Screen

If multiplayer selected the player can start a new game others can join or
join an existing game on another machine.

The IP address can be entered for connecting to a remote computer and
defaults to the hosts machine IP address.

Upto 8 players (depending on the game scenerio) can link to the same
machine and join the same game.

A chat facility is provided allowing players to broadcast messages to all
players joined, alternatively a player can direct a message to a single other
player by specifying their name followed by a colon and then the message ,

for example if Steves sends a message to Bob, Steve types..

BOB:WHEN ARE YOU STARTING

Bob will be the only one who gets the following message

STEVE:WHEN ARE YOU STARTING

Screenshots