The Page

battalion was a game written in 1994 on a Silicon Graphics Indy in GL for the contest. This version also ran in the CAVE(tm) as a virtual reality game at the EVE 4 art show in May 1995. The GL version won 'best indy software' and is available on the Indizone3 CDROM. It was then converted to OpenGL (with several enhancements) and modified in late 1996 to work with the Mesa graphics library. In 1997 it won the Hot Mix 17 game contest from SGI, and was availableon the Hot Mix 17 CDROM.

battalion now also runs on Suns under SunOS 4 and Solaris 2, under Linux, on HP workstations, under AIX, under OpenVMS, on the Macintosh, on Windows 95 and the BeOS.

The classic Macintosh version of battalion runs on the G3s and the G4s (though you may have to give the app some more memory).This version also runs quite well under classic in OS-X.

For Mac OS-X users, the carbon Macintosh version runs quite well on G4s and not so well on G3s. This version doesn't have sound effects or music at this point, but is otherwise functional. This version works fine on 10.0.4 through10.2 and probably a few earlier builds. The server here doesn't understand .dmg files so you should save the file to disc since by default it will try to download as text.

here is the Windows 95/NT/98/xp version of battalion. For xp you will need to remove the two dll files.

Here is the description of battalion from the Silicon Graphics homepage in Japan.

Battalion wa 'kaiju ga bakuhatsu, hakai' wo kuri-kaesu game desu.
Battalion is a game where 'A monster blows up, destroys' repeats.

... pretty much says it all ...

Announcements:

4/14/04

Jaime Alemany has created a revised version of the game for Linux and Windows with levels and other modifications. It can be downloaded from here

OS-X version 10.2.3 showed a small bug in the routine for the title graphic that hadn't shown up before, so there is a new version of battalion (1.5.3) to fix this. It can be found here.

Eero Tamminen (oak at welho.com) sent in a patch for the updated Linux version This new version can be found here

Kasper Werther (cool_kid19@hotmail.com) created another new city data file which composed of a new tank, tree, and road files. Note that if you want to replace the data files under OS-X you need to go in through the terminal and replace the appropriate files in battalion 1.5.2.app/Contents/Resources

Andrew (kazami@ntlworld.com) has updated the Linux version so that it runs at a reasonable speed with sound under Linux. This new version can be found here

The OS-X version of battalion got a colour 1/4 page mention in the November 2001 issue of MacPower magazine in Japan and appears on the CDROM in that issue. Thanks to the MacPower people for sending me a copy of the issue. Scans of that page are here and here.

The carbon Macintosh version now has the music and sound effects restored.

The carbon Macintosh version has been updated to use gameGLUT so now it fills the screen as it runs. The command line options have also been reenabled. This version runs fine on G4s running OS-X, though it does not have the music or sound effects yet. This version is currently also available on apple's OS-X software site (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/) in the Games and Hobbies section.

I have released the first carbon Macintosh version. This version runs fine on G4s running OS-X, though it does not have the music or sound effects yet.

I updated the long-dormant Linux version for Red Hat 6.2 and this version now includes all of the source code by default. You can get it from here

I got access to a mac cube running os 9 today and battalion seems to run fine on it ...though you may need to increase its memory allocation by a few meg. You can get it from here. The older version which works on the older non-G3 Power Macs is available here. I have also got battalion running quite nicely under OS-X but no audio yet. I expect to have a full OS-X release by the official OS-X rollout in 2001.

While not a battalion announcement, this is somewhat related as this weekend I got to be an extra in Godzilla X Megaguiras which will be out in Japan this December. More here.

Kasper Werther (cool_kid19@hotmail.com) created 3 new city data files which are here, here, and here. Each of these is a Stuffit archive containing the tank, road, and tree data files.

The CAVE version of battalion has now been upgraded to OpenGL and contains the same features found in the current OpenGL desktop release. This version runs in SGI-powered CAVEs(tm) and ImmersaDesks(tm) as well as HP-powered ImmersaDesks, and should also run fine in the Linux version of the CAVE library.

battalion got a 1/4 page mention in the September issue of MacPower magazine in Japan. Scans of the page are located here and here.

The new G3 compatible version of battalion for the Macintosh is available.You can get it from here. The older version which works on the older non-G3 Power Macs is available here.

Ed Silva's BeOS port of battalion now runs on Intel and PowerPC. You can get it from here

Ed Silva has ported battalion to the BeOs (PowerPC only). You can get it from here

battalion version 1.5beta2, the second beta, is now available for Windows 95/NT. This version will ocassionally crash and doesn't have all the features of other platforms but its just a beta. Better versions are coming soon. You can download it here.

1/4/98

battalion has now been compiled for OpenVMS and for Free87 under OS/2. These versions, as well as all the other non-SGI versions, can be found here.

12/15/97

battalion is now shipping as part of S.U.S.E. Linux

10/1/97

battalion is now shipping as part of Sun Microsystems' 'Ultra Pack Volume 2' CDROM distributed with each Ultra Creator / Creator 3D system shipped

9/22/97

There is now a patch for battalion to take advantage of the 3DFX card under Linux. available on the SGI-less battalion page. This patch file was made by Damien Miller (dmiller@vitnet.com.sg)

8/9/97

battalion won the Creator Program games contest from Silicon Graphics, and is now included on the HotMix 17 CDROM from SGI.

1/16/97

Source code for version 1.4 of battalion is now available at the bottom of this page. This includes the changes that were made for the Macintosh version.

8/6/96

Version 1.3 of battalion is now available! The OpenGL version can be found on the '2nd battalion' page. The new SunOS version can be found on the SGI-less battalion page. The updated source code is also available below.

Goodies:

There are several different flavours of battalion you can downlaod:

If you want to download the (newer) OpenGL version of battalion 1.3 for Silicon Graphics workstations then click here to go to the '2nd battalion' page.

If you want to download the (older) GL version for Silicon Graphics workstations then click here. to go to the 'GL battalion' page. This is the currently UNsupported version that I submitted to the Indizone3 contest (which is slightly different from the version that is available on the Indizone3 CDROM.)

If you want to download battalion for SunOS 4, Solaris, AIX, or Macintosh; or to find information about battalion on other platforms (Linux, HP, etc.), then click here to go to the 'SGI-less battalion' page.

If you want to download the source code for battalion 1.4 then click here. If you want to download the source code for battalion 1.3 then click here. Note that to play the game you will still need to download one of the battalion 1.3 executables to get the data files. (I would suggest downloading the SunOS version of the executable if you aren't running on a Silicon Graphics workstation as you will then get the help files in .gif form rather than in Showcase form.) Note that you will need the 1.3 executables as there have been some changes in the datafiles since version 1.2.

More battalion stuff

If I ever have the time, the next game I want to write, in a somewhat simialr vein, is 'Thunderchild' ... based on the battle between the Martian War Machines and the ironclad Thunderchild.

You get to command the Thunderchild, which depending on the difficulty level ranges from the turn of the century ironclad to a modern day cruiser armed with missiles. You have to protect the escaping civilian ships, allowing as many to escape as possible before the Martians destroy you.

If you're interested in my current 'real' work with a collaborative virtual reality learning environment for children, then check out the Tele-Immersive Learning Environments page.

I want to thank the members of the Electronic Visualization Lab for all their helpful suggestions during the development of this game (though almost all of the suggestions were 'give us more stuff to blow up').

I also want to thank Ray Harreyhausen, Eiji Tsubaraya, and all the others who perform magic with pieces of rubber and plastic.

For more X based games, check here

Copyright © Andrew Johnson 1995-1997