Author’s Readme

Directions: This is a clone of the classic arcade game “Rampart”. It is controlled with the mouse and requires a scroll wheel. For those unfamiliar with Rampart, it is a tower-defense style game, with 3 distinct phases: (1) Build Walls, (2) Place Cannons, (3) Defend.

In the Build Walls phase, you race against a countdown, using the mouse to drag randomly shaped wall pieces around the playfield. Left click to place a wall piece, and spin the scroll wheel to rotate the piece around its center. The objective is to completely surround unclaimed territory and enclose the pre-placed forts. You must enclose at least one fort to continue playing, you should try to enclose several. When the countdown expires, gameplay progresses to the Place Cannons phase.

In the Place Cannons phase, you can drop cannons onto any territory that was claimed during the Build Walls phase. The more forts you enclosed, the more cannons you get. Mouse controls are the same as the Build Walls phase. When the countdown expires, gameplay progresses to the Defend phase.

In the Defend phase, enemy boats will sneak into your harbor and begin shooting down your walls. You must sink them by firing your cannons (left click, hold for continuous fire). The ships move and require deflection shooting, especially for cannons placed far away from the harbor. This phase ends when all ships are destroyed, or time expires. After the Defend phase, play returns to the Build Walls phase. You will repair your walls and place new guns for subsequent attacks.

The game ends when you are unable to enclose any forts during the Build Walls phase. Build the biggest empire you can!

Build notes: A project file for Flash Develop is enclosed. Additionally, the game can be built from the command line using the make.bat script that resides alongside the .as files. The mxmlc must be in your path for make.bat to work.

Known Bugs: In order for territory to be claimed, at least one non-cannon, non-fort square must be included in the enclosed area.

Judge’s Comments

Michael: This one is on the cusp of greatness. Your first task is to, in a Tetris like fashion, surround all your forts with walls. The second task is to place cannons around those fortifications. Your last task is to fire at incoming enemy ships off the shore. Then you begin again. The problem is that the first task is very tricky. The time limit is short enough and the controls just jerky enough that getting something properly surrounded is harder than it should be and failure to do so ends the game immediately. So, if you can get the hang of things, very fun… but this one was hard for me to get into.

Chris: Oh boy do I love rampart! One of my all time favourite games. Great execution, maybe the progression needs tweaking (too many ships, too many guns), but impressive fill algorithm on the walls in 4k.

Panayoti: It’s Rampart in Flash in less than 4k! The game is well implemented and I had a lot of fun playing through it. The graphics are cheesy/awesome and gameplay is naturally solid. A really fun entry to judge.

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