turings-tarpit/README.md

# About Turing's Tarpit

This is a game for programmers. The eventual goal is to make a small game that makes programmer
development live streams more exciting, but also makes it fun to try to keep your code bug free.

## How It Works

0. You start with 100 Hit Points (HP).
1.  _Turing's Tarpit (TT)_ watches your git repo.
2. If you save any files in your git then TT will run your build.
3. It then uses a regex to detect errors, warnings, and notes from your compiler.
4. Every error is 4 HP of damage.  Warnings and Notes are 1 HP.
5. If you successfully build with no errors then you get 10% HP back (healed).
6. It keeps track of your rounds, and your longest streak.  A streak is how many builds have run without producing an error.

Eventually this will become more complex as I add in a few more mechanics, but this is the general
game loop.  Some of the ideas for future mechanics:

1. I have a real trash Brainfuck compiler.  I want to have that in there somewhere.
2. I like the way Shotgun Roulette works where you get some items per round and can use them to gain
   an advantage.
3. I want streaks to be some kind of reward, either you just get some healing after a certain
   number, or you can "cash them in" for a special item.
4. It needs to detect when you don't make enough changes to be worth it, but I might try to punish you if you just change a file's timestamp.
5. Running your unit tests as well to analyze the TAP output and punish you for test failures.

## Platforms

Currently this only works on Windows but there's nothing in this that will stop it from working
anywhere else. It uses FTXUI to make a TUI so that means it's very portable. I just haven't spent
the time to try to port it yet.

It's also only been test with GCC and C++. I'm betting the regex will be crazy wrong for any other
language. _BTW, where's the TAP output for compilers?_

## Compiling Setup

> __WARNING__ These instructions are off the top of my head right now so they're probably wrong. I
> need to do a clean build in a fresh VM.

To build this you'll need to install [winlibs](https://winlibs.com/) and [meson](https://mesonbuild.com/) but I believe my build process downloads everything else.

If you want to get setup quickly with a C/C++ build environment then you can use my installer scripts. Start a _NORMAL_ user PowerShell to run this. If you're walking around the internet as a raw _Administrator_ user then you might as well just inject ebola infected blood straight into your eye you idiot. No, UAC will not save you. Listen to Zed.

Now, in your _NORMAL_ user PowerShell do this:

```shell
irm https://learncodethehardway.com/setup/base.ps1 -outfile base.ps1
powershell -executionpolicy bypass .\base.ps1
```

Do not _go anywhere_. You have to enter in passwords for your _Administrator_ user.  You do have a
second user that's an administrator right?  Seriously, what's your problem. Do you just like having
your neighbor install a RAT tool to spy on you? Make two accounts already.

Now that you have this you can install the compiler tools:

```shell
irm https://learncodethehardway.com/setup/cpp.ps1 -outfile cpp.ps1
powershell -executionpolicy bypass .\cpp.ps1
```

For a bit of extra nice things, run my `extras.ps1` too:


```shell
irm https://learncodethehardway.com/setup/extras.ps1 -outfile extras.ps1
powershell -executionpolicy bypass .\extras.ps1
```

## Building

Once you have all of that you should be able to check out the code from this git:

```shell
git clone https://git.learnjsthehardway.com/learn-code-the-hard-way/turings-tarpit.git
```

Then change into the directory and run my setup script:

```shell
make reset
```

That should setup your meson build with everything you need, so now you run it:

```shell
make
```

This will build it assuming you used my setup scripts and have `make`. If you don't then look in the `Makefile` for the commands to run.

The next dumb as hell thing is even though I've told `meson` to build a static binary it refuses.
You have to copy a couple .dll files to your local directory for the easiest way to play with it:

```shell
make install
```

You should then see the `libefsw.dll` and `liblibgit2package.dll` files in the local directory which
will let you run the `escape_turings_tarpit.exe` game locally.

> __WARNING__ The reason you're copying all these files to the local directory is so you can run the
> game and the DLLs but _also_ run the build on the code.  Windows locks executables when they're
> active, so when you build `builddir/escape_turings_tarpit.exe` it'll fail if you're also running
> it.  Copy it all up and then you can run builds in the game while you work on the game.

Then hang out for a while and it should build. You can then do your first run.  First, run the
tests:

```shell
make test
```

## Configuration

There's a file `tarpit_sample.json` that configures everything for the game.  You can set your own
sounds, the build directory, and the build command to use.  Just open it and you'll see.  If you
don't want to hear me laughing at you then set the sounds to `nothing.mp3` and it'll be silent.

I have an example file `tarpit_example.json` which you can copy to `.tarpit.json` to get started:

```shell
make config
```

You can edit the `.tarpit.json` file to change the build command and sounds used during building,
just in case my silky smooth radio quality voice is not to your liking.

## Running

If those run then try to run the game on its own code:

```shell
make run
```

Now it's playing, so all you have to do is open one of the .cpp files, make a mistake, save it, and watch the game play.