This information is for the 1995 MechMania contest.
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1995 Reflections | Projections Programming Contest

Mech Mania

"It's Stompin' Time"

Everything here is summarized in this handy fact sheet.

This year's programming contest is basically an advanced game of capture the flag, only this time the flag is an armored base, and you don't need to bother capturing it... simply blowing it to dust will do.

The winning team will receive an awesome stack of X books from our programming contest sponsor O'Reilly & Associates.

Mech Mania - "It's Stompin' Time" will provide the opportunity for up to twelve teams of three people each to out wit each other on the game field. We will provide a networked game server and a basic network game client. Each team will have one day to write C++ classes that override the default Mech behaviors.

The first task of your code will be to choose an army of Scout, Light, and Heavy Mechs, and armor your base with a given number of resource points. You can override behaviors for all of the Mechs, or you can modify behaviors for each individual type of Mech. Suggested behaviors include scouting the position of the opponent's Mechs and base, guarding your own base, and attacking opponent's forces.

Team members should have good working knowledge of C++ classes and virtual functions. No networking or graphics knowledge is needed- all that code will be provided. We hope to provide each team of three with at least two UNIX workstations running the X Window System. We will also provide a set of standard development tools including g++, gdb, emacs, vi, etc. Both student and professional (or mixed) teams are welcome.

A screenshot from an early prototype of MechMania:

(added 2004)Other screenshots of MechMania from 1995
Team entries
Documentation