Tanken 8 Tank Game – Part 1

I wrote this in 1995 when I was in Grade 9 at school, with obviously too much spare time on my hands. This started life as a clone of famous games like Scorched Earth and Bomb32. With input from classmates it quickly developed its own cache of unique weapons and I actually developed it to the point where you could play it.

As well as being able to play your friends, there were three intelligence levels:

Brainless – this dude picks a random power and angle and shoots. Sometimes, they’ll even manage to hit themselves.

Laserdude – Laserdude is quite a bit more intelligent than the Brainless. In the early rounds, before they earn enough money, they will aim at any tank higher than they are with maximum power. In later rounds when they get some cash, they’ll buy lasers and that’s when you’re really screwed. If the round places you above them, better pray that they pick someone else to shoot at, cause they’ll nail you every time.

Zorkman – This guy is the guy to watch. Whoever they aim at, they’ll nail 99 times out of 100, even allowing for strong winds. And once they get nukes, there tends to be a fair amount of collateral damage as well!

Here you can find a short video and several screenshots from the game.

The menu that you see upon entering the game.

At the start of a round, you find yourself and up to 9 other tanks on nice, untouched landscape. But not for long…

I tried to have a large variety of background types, as many as I could get without actually using images and limited by 320×200 256 colour resolutions. Once again some of these are inspired by Scorched Earth or Bomb32.

Yet another background. The weapons are coming soon…

Last background only image. I swear!

Click here for part 2!