A new fun way to learn Forth! - Forth Warrior

[JonnyBritish]

 

TurboForth is a very powerful language for the TI99 but you have to go some way to be good enough to get good output from the TI99 such as a game etc. However in the last few days a new way to learn Forth has appeared which is fun and has a retro twist and that is Forth Warrior by John Earnest. The idea is that the system presents you with an environment that looks all retro and you program the brain of an AI that will go through a dungeon looking for the next level and of course monsters and treasure. As your AI gets better and as you learn more Forth you can of course revisit levels to get a better score as the game keeps track of how many levels you got to, how many gems you collected and how many cpu cycles you used.

 

I can think of no better way to get into a language than to create an AI and run it to solve the dungeon. Perhaps your first AI will simply get through each level but then you will revisit to get all the gems - massive replay..err I mean re-learn potential !!! :-)

 

To run it on your windows pc you need to download the .JAR file and run it - http://www.mediafire.com/download/qs64gczqkay3ma0/ForthWarrior.jar

 

If you are unable to run it you need the Java runtime - http://www.java.com/...l.jsp?locale=en

 

I have added 8 screens to give you an idea how it looks.

 

Here is the project page with complete instructions - https://github.com/J.../games/Warrior2

 

Will your AI make it to the last level...will Forth Warrior be the spark that gets you into Forthing on the TI99?

 

Great Fun and thanks for creating this John Earnest!!

 

Lastly here is an interview with John in the Game Developer magazine - go to the section called News - Heads Up Display - http://academic.norc...er201304-dl.pdf

Edited June 7, 2013 by JonnyBritish

[sometimes99er]

Very nice. Thanks for posting. It's been a lot of fun.

 

I miss a random number generator. Could I make one up (within the environment) ? It looks as if the source code is available and also as if it would be easy to add custom words. The file extension kickstarts my Visual Studio and I've got F# installed, but I guess that's not the way to go (get lots of errors) ?

 

The "take a chance" (random number) AI, and maybe "learn from your mistakes" AI can be fascinating to watch - or quite boring (if it seems to be plain out of luck).