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Almonaster is a turn-based multi-player war game that runs on the World Wide Web using form submissions as user input. No downloads, JScript, Java or ActiveX controls are required. If you are reading this page and your browser can post forms, then you can play.
Almonaster was inspired by a long line of strategy games, particularly T&E Software's Daiva series, which were programmed for the MSX2 computer. If you have an MSX2 emulator, you can run the 1986 game Daiva story V, which was way ahead of its time.
The design of Almonaster was also heavily influenced by the popular online game Stellar Crisis, and the look and feel of Almonaster has been designed to be familiar and usable by those who are familiar with Stellar Crisis 2.8x. Stellar Crisis resources that may be useful for a better understanding of Almonaster culture and gameplay include:
No source code from Stellar Crisis or from any other program was used create Almonaster. The graphical elements common to both games are either in the public domain or permission was obtained from the authors to make use of them. Many of the fundamental elements of Almonaster can be found in classic war games such as Risk or Stellar Conquest. Others, such as the ship types and attributes, are attributable to Sylvan Clebsch's Stellar Crisis. It is not the intention of the authors of Almonaster to portray these ideas as their own.
Almonaster is free software, released under the GNU Public License. In addition to the privileges and restrictions imposed by the GPL, there are two additional clauses that apply to the use of Almonaster and any derivative works:
If a server is found to be violating these principles, please notify the current maintainer of the matter.
Almonaster is a page-source plug-in for the Alájar web server. This means that the Almonaster game code registers itself as the recipient of HTTP requests that come with a certain URI (Uniform Resource Identifier). For example, a typical configuration of Alájar would delegate HTTP requests for anything under http://www.server.com/almonaster/ to the Almonaster page-source; the page-source would respond by supplying HTML code to return to the client.
Almonaster itself is based on a modular design that incorporates the following components:
This is an ASCII art flow-chart of the modules:
HTTP clients ----------------> Alájar <----------------- HTTP clients
|
Almonaster page source
/ | \
Webpage Modules
|
GameEngine
|
Database
From a high-level point of view, the system operates as follows:
Almonaster has been successfully tested on the following server-side platforms:
Almonaster does not support Windows 9x/ME on the server side.
Almonaster clients require an internet connection and
a forms-capable browser, specifically one that supports the POST method. This
would include practically any modern browser: Internet Explorer, Netscape
Navigator, Opera,
Lynx
and many others qualify as such. Minimal system requirements for an Almonaster server will look
something like this:
Almonaster is sufficiently lightweight that it could probably be used as a personal
game server, perhaps even over a dial-up connection. Please note that the requirements listed above are only for the server:
many people seem to read this section too quickly and for some reason assume
that you need NT and lots of RAM just to play. The truth is just the opposite, of
course: all you need is a browser, so you can play Almonaster from AmigaOS with IBrowse or
from a 386 running Netscape 2.0. The installation procedure is as follows:
If you want to run Alájar
as a system service, open a command prompt and run "alajarsvc.exe -install"
to install the service. Then use the control panel to set the service to
automatic and start it up. After this, connecting to http://localhost/
or http://127.0.0.1/ in any web
browser should give you the Almonaster login screen. You can change the
server's port number in the Alajar.conf file. Information on configuring Alájar can be found here. The default empire with administrative privileges is: Please report any problems with this installation procedure to the current maintainer. Both Alájar and Almonaster are compiled and
tested with Visual C++ on Windows XP. The code is generally platform
independent, although for advanced functionality such as threading and
synchronization it makes use of a set of libraries called Osal (Operating System
Abstraction Libraries). Because of this coding strategy, ports to other OSes are
relatively simple, since they only require a port of the Osal libraries. The
source distribution contains a Linux port that was created by
Austin Che. If you are interested in improving the existing ports
or working on new ones, please contact the current maintainer. If you are going to compile Almonaster on your
system, you can unzip the source distribution
into a directory on your computer and start building the projects. The build
order you want to use is the following:
Release binaries and libs will go into \Release, debug
binaries into \Alajar, include files and debug libs into \Include Osal.dll If you enjoy graphical design, then you are welcome to submit icons or themes
for the game. Icons are 40x40 transparent gif's, some examples of which
can be found here. Note that submitted themes do not have
to be complete, although it would be nice if they were. In particular, creating
all the buttons is a significant task. Each theme contains the following elements: All gif's used for both icons and themes should be in Gif'89
transparent format. Existing themes can be found in the main
distribution. Many of the fundamental elements of Almonaster can be found in
classic war games such as Risk, Stellar Conquest or Daiva.
Others, such as the ship types, are attributable to Sylvan Clebsch's Stellar
Crisis. It is not my intention to portray these ideas as my own. It should be made clear that no source code from Stellar Crisis or
from any other software project was used create Almonaster. Almonaster is released under the GNU
Public License. In addition to the privileges and restrictions imposed by
the GPL, there are two additional clauses that apply to the use of Almonaster
and its any derivative works:
"This is great work. You are, indeed, the man." "Looks to be a lot of fun and some of the major problems with SC have
been addressed beautifully. I cannot tell you the number of times I have wanted
to terraform for a newbie ally or even an experienced one or vice versa" "Almonaster has the potential to become my favorite version of SC" "I find your chatroom to be about a billion times better then any other
stellar crisis room. my hat goes off to you" "Congratulations on this game. Great stuff. I like the new features and
game types a lot, and also the feature to download the schemes to reduce the
online load." "Just let me start by saying GREAT STUFF!!!! I LOVE IT!!!" "I am very impressed with what you've created. I've played SC off and on since
early 1996 and recently discovered Almonaster. The interface changes you've made
are so useful and intuitive that I constantly wonder that they weren't always
there. Well done." "I'd like to tell you how much I like this version of SC. It has everything
I've been looking for since I started played this game 5 years ago. Great work." "Love it Max. Playing this server is like getting behind the wheel of a
sports car."Client requirements
Server requirements
Installation
Login: root
Password: neil:youngCompilation
Alajar.dll
Alajar.exe
AlajarSvc.exe
Database.dll
OldDatabase.dll
Asfpp.exe
DBConv.exe
PageSources\Almonaster.dll
PageSources\AlmonasterHook.dll
PageSources\Admin.dllGraphics
Legal issues
Reactions
- The Saucer People
"I'd just like to say that I think that Almonaster is really cool."
- Conor Cary
"there is even a freakin chatroom...im dropping out of school"
- GW
"It is pretty cool."
- Sam Rihawi
- Allen Thomas
- Feste
- Jim Swanson
- Morgan
- Danny Turrin
- Brian Becker
- Jonathan Tremblay
- Denton Troy