Uplink in-game programming

[heatsink]

It just occurred to me, one possibility to introduce people gradually to the in-game programming language, is to leave off the programming until somewhat into the game. The programming software is something you buy. Maybe when you purchase Compiler 1.0, it's cheap and has no conditional execution commands, Compiler 2.0 has conditional branching you need for loops and if-elses. Of course Uplink help will have a suitable tutorial...

I'm still in favor of a graphical programming language, mainly because I think it is most faithful to the Hollywood Hacking style that Uplink tries to match. For the pianists, it would be cool if there were keystrokes for most programming commands. Right now I'm favoring a GPL with wires that indicate control flow, this will make the program look like a flowchart.

A graphical prog. interface is not a limitation (except that it can get messy in big programs), btw, a properly written one can do anything a text language does.

(Edited by heatsink at 7:44 am on Dec. 17, 2001)

[trip11]

Then can you buy/steal the sourcecode, or decompile, the programs that are already in the game, and then modify them slightly.  Also in a multi-player world a good programer could make a lot of money just selling programs he wrote.

[Narcissus]

Hm.  Would something like this work?

(Image)

[heatsink]

No, given that passwords in Uplink are eight characters long, your program only generates seven character passwords...

I was thinking something with white-on-dark gfx and wires indicating dataflow and control flow... But I'm too lazy to draw a picture...

[t12987]

i think that would be a kickass addition to the game:) But it probably would take designers a really long time to make

[Disavowed]

lol ok... a few words on the topic at hand. It is feasible, albeit C++/BASIC/Visual whatever shouldn't be considered. One possibility for it would be a subset of Perl (which is actually used for real-life hacking). Perl is an Open-Source, powerful scripting language. Support for it has been included in a few games (not for the players, though), as has Tcl/Tk. Writing a small interpreter for it shouldn't be too hard, and if Chris would like to contact me, I'd be willing to give him a hand.

A couple caveats though...
1. You might alienate part of the non-technical crowd.
2. After coming home from doing this kind of thing at work (lol yes, I actually make my living like this.. don't worry, I'm a good guy ), I'd only be willing to write yet another perl-esque script for the most specialized cases...

[OutSider]

or even just a program that writes it for you (but it wont be ass good) and you can enter backgates for you to enter

[z3p]

Or Python (http://www.python.org)
It's
1) Very easy to learn
2) Very embedable (many game today embed Python for event/AI scripting)
3) Powerful

It's an ideal candidate for something like in-game scripting.
-z

[Mr Metaphysical]

I think you guys are missing something really obvious. Who here knows about the Lego MindStorm programming language? It already looks alot like a game, and it has that graphical programming language bonus. I am not saying rip it off totally, but something along those lines would be great, just have each function be a little puzzle piece or whatever it is they look like, and have people be able to make their own simple little functions, or if that would be too powerful, have the ability to make them, and submit them somewhere, and have a reviewer decide if it is not TOO good, and allow it to be downloaded from a central server (in game), maybe for a price. Would be nice to allow these little updates to the language to be stolen from the servers and players, would make it more fun overall.

[Orpheus Sun]

Speaking from a computer player's point of view (The only programming I did was in BASIC) who had a bit of trouble with the console until it was pointed out to me that it was just dos/unix, I would go with the flowchart graphical style. It sounds quite good and the whole mix and match idea rocks.
Maybe you could buy the subsets (subroutines?) of the main programs separately in the software shop at a cheaper price and assemble them yourself, and make custom programs like that. It's simple enough for most gamers but also allows the hardcore out there to still do some custom work.

[Kezy]

Urgh, thats what the guy before you said. F**KIN JACKA** PIECE OF S*IT B*TTRA*ING SON OF A B*TCH

Anyways, yeah, good idea. I think it would be cool if you were the guy who made a revelation or faith like thingy. When it said 'You can even help in building the ultimate computer virus' I thought 'cool, you can tweak it, debug it, search through the code and add bits and see how cool it is. That would be cool. But, like my signature always says :

[glitch_uplink]

it would be nice to have a programming language but by choosing one you'll alienate a group of people who aren't experianced with a certain one. (all i know is basic) and if you go with Pearl or C++ it will just make the game difficult..... not that it wouldnt be good to learn a new language....

[SilverGryphon]

I'm not much of a programmer, but I like creating game concepts )

So, how about this: Imagine you have a number of "commands" available to use. However, some commands require that you already have gained a specific Uplink level (as your Uplink level reflects how skilled you are this seems logical).
Or your Uplink level determined how big the programs could be, i.e. how many commands you can put into slef-made programs.

What I miss in the game is something like an RPG factor... your success mostly relies on the equipment you buy, but not your skill.

[Sonnybobiche]

<UPLINK>
<NAME=Dictionary Hacker>
<BEGIN PROGRAM>
<DISPLAY “box1”>
<FOLLOW CURSOR>
<IF CLICK “loginbox”=TRUE>
<THEN BEGIN “command0”>
<ELSE WAIT>
<END IF>
<“command0”= <IF “loginbox namebox” text= ()>
                          <THEN INSERT text(admin)>
  <ELSE MOVE to “loginbox passwordbox”>
  <ENDIF>
<OPEN “dictionary.txt”>
<MOVE to “loginbox passwordbox”>
<INSERT “aardvark”:“zygote” AND combine>
<END PROGRAM>>



This language would combine pseudo HTML, BASIC, and even a small portion of excel.
Let me explain it in further detail. All commands are placed in the brackets <>, like in HTML, except there is no closing tag. The “” tags are used around text entries and box names. For example “loginbox” is the login prompt at the server you have connected to. An example for the text entry use would be:
<INSERT “aardvark”:“zygote” AND combine>
This whole command basically means:
INSERT the all entries from “aardvark” to “zygote”, and combine them.
This command, therefore, tells the computer to take every entry from the dictionary, and place it in the password box. Note that the extra “>” after <END PROGRAM> denotes the end of “command0”.

So this is the basic structure:
<language name>
<program name>
<begin program>
<any instructions the program should follow without condition>
<conditional instructions>
<if the end program command is placed in the extensive commands section below, it should not be placed here>


<commands that are too extensive to be placed within the regular code are placed after the code to avoid confusion. If the end program command is placed in one of these commands, it will end the program.>
This program would, of course, require you to, preferably, buy a copy of dictionary.txt, or even write your own using notepad

[Kid Shenck]

I had two ideas but am kind of conflicted.

First, I thought that mod making could be a possibilty. If they left a door open so that you could download tools from Uplink fansites and stuff, it might be cool.it would also serve to blur the line of fantansy and reality in the game.

Then, I thought it would nice to see a small, simple scripting language that you could use to write scripts to upload to yout target computers. This might, however, make things too simple. People could just write a script to
cd sys && delete && cd .. && cd log && delete && shutdown

I think perl or python would be a bit hard to implement, though both powerful and easy. I would rather see UplinkScript(R), myself.