122 Britannia Avenue, London, Ontario, CANADA, N6H 2J5
NOTE: It is a blatant violation of copyright to distribute this game for a fee without the written consent of the author. This restriction applies in particular to CD ROM publishers, and to any organization that sells shareware or charges a fee for distribution of shareware.
NetRisk is shareware, so send $10 (Canadian cheques or international money orders only, please!) to me at the address listed above. This program installs a virus that will scramble your hardrive unless you send in your registration money. (Just kidding, but why not send it anyway? Be the first person on the planet to actually pay an author for shareware!)
What is it?
NetRisk was originally inspired by "MazeWars" and the boardgame "Risk." However, the game has evolved so much during its development that only a look-and-feel lawyer from Apple would have the audacity to claim it still bears any resemblance to the play of the original game. Notably, NetRisk allows up to six players to play simultaneously over an AppleTalk network, and the notion of turns and Risk cards is discarded.
Unfortunately, NetRisk does not yet simulate other players, so you really can't play by yourself. Nor does it work with anything but AppleTalk or EtherTalk, so you're also out of luck if you're not hooked up to a network.
Starting A Game:
Choose "New Game" from the Play menu. NetRisk will scan the network for other players and list those players it finds. It is important for every player to wait until he, she, or it can see every other player before clicking the "Start Game" button! This is a nuisance, but it is the price paid for allowing several different sessions of the game to be played on one network.
Object of the Game:
The object of the game is to conquer the world by attacking and defeating the armies in your enemies' countries.
Attacking:
To attack an enemy country, click and select one of your own countries (shown in gray), then command-click on a neighbouring enemy country. The usual Risk attacker/defender dice rolls are performed, and the losses calculated. All attacking armies move in to occupy conquered countries.
Moving Armies:
To move armies, click on a country, then option-click on the neighbouring country to which the armies should move. A single option-click moves one army, and a shift-option-click (ugh) moves all armies. Groups of armies may be selected for movement by clicking the icons displayed in the lower right corner of the screen, or by typing a number (0 = 10 armies). No country may contain more than 99 armies! (just try it)
For a while with version 1.1 of the game, I made it possible to move armies from one country to any other country which was connected by a sequence of occupied countries. For example, you could move armies directly from Alaska to Mexico if you owned Western Canada and Western USA. I eventually decided that I really did not like this capability, and I took it out again. So, don't bother writing me to suggest this feature, since I have deliberately removed it.
Reinforcements:
New armies are generated in occupied countries periodically, as are bonus armies are awarded for occupying complete continents. Click on a country to display its name and the number of seconds remaining until it earns bonus armies (first number is for country bonus, second number is for continent bonus). The frequency at which reinforcements are generated is controlled via the "Reinforcements" menu. The reinforcements timebase is fudged by a random factor, so the actual delay is in the range from one-half to the full time chosen. The delay for continent bonuses is three times the delay for country bonuses.
If a player changes the rate at which he or she is earning reinforcements during a game, all other players will be notified, and they will have the option of matching rates. This was the best compromise I could come up with to prevent unfair play, yet still allow flexibility in reinforcement rates. If you have a better suggestion, I'd like to hear it.
Other Stuff:
If an enemy player becomes unreachable during a game, you are notified and given the option of dropping the unreachable player from the game. Once a player is dropped, he or she cannot rejoin the game. If you choose to drop the unreachable player from play, the countries that belonged to that player are considered unoccupied, and you may claim them by simply moving in. Some weird things can happen if two players simultaneously attempt to occupy an unoccupied country, so I set the game up such that only one army moves in to occupy at first. Thus, if information is lost between players, only one army goes missing in the ether....
If the response to an attack seems sluggish, it may be that the other player's game is too busy tending to screen updates to respond immediately. This is a problem when the reinforcement rate is high, so the obvious solution is to play at a more reasonable speed.
NetRisk might be compatible with multiple AppleTalk zones, but I'm not sure. I added the code to make it smart enough to look for and scan multiple zones; however, since I'm running a single-zone network, I can't test it here. To enable multi-zone compatibility, use the "Multiple Zones" option under the Network menu. This option is available only if you're running the AppleTalk phase 2 drivers! I'd be interested in hearing whether this part of the game really works....
One problem I foresee with multiple-zone networks is that the retry interval I use by default might be too short. Consequently, I've added an option to the Network menu to allow you to adjust the retry interval. It is 1 second by default, which is fine for single-zone networks, but can be extended up to 10 seconds (or more if you're handy with ResEdit).
The Future:
Eventually, I'd like to implement colour support, sound effects, message passing, Communications ToolBox compatibility, computerized opponents that use a neural network to learn and plan strategy, more sophisticated game rules (finances, natural resources, technology, etc.). Hmm, this is starting to sound like a multi-player, competitive version of SimEarth....
Problems:
NetRisk 1.1 is incompatible with version 1.0 of the game! This is due to a change in the size and structure of the AppleTalk information packets exchanged by game nodes. I know I deserve to be forced to work in COBOL (that's what "C" stands for, isn't it?) for doing this, but it was the easiest way to implement changes for the new version. Besides, the new version is such an improvement, that naturally everyone will upgrade and we'll all live happily ever after....
I've tried NetRisk on several machines so far (512KE, Plus, SE, Classic, IIc, IIcx, IIfx, LC) and it seems to work under system 6.0.x and 7. Apparently there is some sort of conflict between NetRisk and the extensions control panel under System 7.0, and possibly a conflict with QuickTime. Don't ask me why though....
I think NetRisk should be 32-bit happy, but I have not tested this out. You are forewarned.
For version 1.1, I've fiddled with the screen update procedure (I use an off-screen bitmap to speed up the updates after the dialog and alert boxes), and that may cause trouble on colour machines. If you're having trouble, you might try switching to monochrome display mode.
I make no guarantees that NetRisk will support multiple AppleTalk zones, though it might.
All these problems are inexcusably annoying, and if someone would give me a Quadra to develop on, I'm sure I'd be able to fix these problems....
Version History:
1.0 ΓÇö July 1992
Initial release.
1.1 ΓÇö August 1992 Version 1.1 is incompatible with the 1.0 version!
Added geographically-correct country names (thanks to Ingemar Ragnemalm for pointing out my errors). Added ability to drag the window on large-screen Macs. Improved network response during dialogs and alerts. Added "Reinforcements" menu and functionality. Made deletion of unreachable player optional. Improved mechanism for screen updates in response to dialog boxes and alerts. Added multiple-zone awareness to the AppleTalk interface. Tried to ensure 32-bit-clean code. Added an adjustable retry interval.
