Tactics

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Tactics is a JavaScript turn-based strategy board game using HTML5 and WebGL. It has full touch support and can be added to the home screen of your mobile device for a near native app experience.

This project is derivative of the flash-based Tactics Arena Online (TAO) game that has since been shut down. It makes use of image and audio files from that game to expedite development. All attempts to contact the rights-holder of these resources have been unsuccessful, so a legal right to use them should not be assumed.

Goals

When the original game was abandoned, it was missed by a large community of players that still exists today. Because of that nostalgia, this project attempts to recapture the authentic game-playing experience of the original. That means using the original graphics and sound effects as long as it is legally possible. On that note, if legally challenged, an attempt will be made to acquire a license to use these materials. Also, the intent is to recreate all of the units from the original game with their original stats and behavior.

It is not enough to recreate the original game experience. It is important to make sure it can never die again. That is why this is an open source project that is in the Public Domain. Anyone may choose to host this game on their own servers for public use. You are also encouraged to rebrand and reskin your version of the game. Be creative, change up the units, stats, and behavior to create something new. This project will make sure that the original experience remains preserved.

The final goal of this project is to keep the game relevant as technology changes. The original game used Flash and did not transition well to the mobile lifestyle. So this project uses HTML5 web technology that can be used on any system whether you're using a mouse, your finger, or a stylus. To meet this goal, this game will differ in minor ways from the original, but not in ways that anybody would complain about.

That is as far as it goes. This project is intended to recreate the core game experience in the modern world. It will not include community support features such as clans, private messaging, or tournament hosting. Anybody who hosts this game is responsible for building such features according to their personal preference.

Requirements

• Docker

Development

After checking out the Git repository, run this command to launch the app.

$ docker compose up

The command will output a URL that can be used to open the game in your browser. The command will continue to monitor source files and rebuild client-side JavaScript and CSS bundles as changes are made.

You may locally host image and audio resources. For example, download and unzip the sprite JSON files from here to the "/static/sprites" directory. Then set the "SPRITE_SOURCE" in the ".env" file to "/sprites/". Not all image and audio resources are currently included in the zip, but the few exceptions will eventually be incorporated.

If you wish to use HTTPS for local development, be sure to set "LOCAL_SECURE=true" in the .env file. Also, install the mkcert tool and install the certificate authority and a certificate for localhost such that localhost.pem and localhost-key.pem files are placed in the config directory. This is useful for testing OAuth and PWA installations.

Windows Development Caveats

When installing Docker Desktop under windows, keep in mind that it takes a little longer for the application to launch. This is due to mapping files between the Windows filesystem and the Linux filesystem inside docker. This is acceptable if you are just trying it out. But since you need to relaunch the application every time you make changes to server code, it can be annoying. To work around this, create an Ubuntu WSL distribution and clone the repository into that. If you use VSCode, you can install the Remote Development extension pack to easily access your code inside a WSL VM, but make sure your Ubuntu distribution is the default. This can shave over 30 seconds off of the startup time. And if you have problems with WSL freezing up, try disabling Resource Saver in Docker Desktop settings.

Otherwise, if you are unable or unwilling to use WSL, then make sure to run this command before cloning the repository.

git config --global core.autocrlf false

You may also want to add this snippet to the webpack.config.cjs file to enjoy automatic builds when you make changes to client-side files.

  watchOptions: {
    poll: 1000,
    ignored: /node_modules/,
  }

Contributing

Pull requests are encouraged. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

Distribution

The HTML files in the static directory can serve as an example of how to publish the game to a website. They make use of distribution JS bundles built using this command:

$ npm run dist

Be aware that no license currently exists for distributing this game as-is for public use since rights have not been acquired for the image and audio resources used by it. It is probably safe to use them, however, during development of this project or a fork of it. You are also encouraged to create your own image and audio resources and integrate them with this source code.

License

All content under the src directory fall under the following license: Unlicense

No license is available for audio and images resources contained in JSON files downloaded from the tactics.taorankings.com site (No License).

Credits

BrowserStack is kind enough to offer a free service to open source projects such as this. Their service is used to test the game across a wide range of devices and browsers.