A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux

B-Arena is an online multiplayer battle arena, where you can't move without shooting. We wanted to experiment with tying shooting to movement. 3 lives, 3 bullets, ammo is replenished every 5 seconds.

Because this is an online game, it's only playable on my server. We uploaded the source files (instructions on how to run that locally below).

How to Actually Play

We didn't have enough to actually make a proper UI to join room and select a name, so please bear with us on this super unintuitive flow:

  • Replace BOB and ROOM in this URL with your player name and preferred room name http://omarshehata.me:5000/?name=BOB&room=ROOM
  • Find a friend (or 3) and share this URL with them. Make sure they put in their name too.
  • Don't have friends? Open multiple browser windows! (Or maybe your phone?)
  • You can tell who you are because your bee looks in the direction of your mouse (ran out of time to add names)
  • Your attack type (projectile or direct) is randomly assigned (we wanted to make it so you could choose).
  • Remember that you can shoot your own bullets!


Strategies

It is a little rough around the edges, but we had a lot of fun thinking of all the emergent strategies that can come out of this mechanic. Because the fact that shooting is your only means of movement, your ammo becomes both your fuel and attack.

You can play as a pacifist and shoot your own bullets to teleport yourself around to avoid hazards. Or you can use all your ammo on taking down other opponents (and then be stuck because you can't move).

Credits

Programming & Design - Omar Shehata

Art & Animation - Isaac Cortissoz

Download

Download
Sourcecode.zip 738 kB

Install instructions

Running Locally

If you just want to play the game, you should just play it on my server (see page description). If you're curious about how the code works or just want to run it locally for any reason, the server is written in Nodejs so if you're familiar with that it should be easy to run. The steps are:

  • Make sure you have Nodejs installed.
  • Run "npm install" inside the folder.
  • Run "node index.js".
  • The game is now running on localhost:5000

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