HISTORY OF KsirK http://games.kde.org/game.php?game=ksirk

I started this game during 1995 (?) in order to learn C++ and Windows 95 programming. It was initialy named "Risk". I used a book about WinG, one of the first Microsoft attempts to give gaming abilities to Windows. But a lot of the examples of this book were in assembler, that I never learned :-( I used these routines but whithout being able to fully understand them. This first version never got an acceptable status.

Some time later I heard from Java and decided to learn it. So, I decided to convert Risk to JRisk. I obtained, if I remember well, a version that was running not so bad, but really slowly.That was due to the use of an early version of Java but also to a really uggly programming.

In the meantime, for my work, I learned Smalltalk (VisualWorks), THE OO language (try it, you really cannot experience higher OO programming pleasure ; I was an addict)and so discovered all the power of good OOP. I started also to use Linux and KDE. I wanted to learn KDE programming and so decided to convert back my lovely project to C++ ! KRisk was born ! But with my experience of Smalltalk and the APIs of Qt and KDE, my work has been, I think, quite better.

At the time of 04/24/2002, some architectural problems due to this complex history remained, but it worked good and I think I could release a public version. I choosed to rename it in order to avoid copyright problems : welcome to KsirK !

In early 2003, the evolution continued with a minimal AI (for Artificial Idiot as its decisions were chosen completly at random) and the themability of the world. This last point is a direct consequence of the improvements of the overall architecture of the game.

In parallel, the online tools linked to the game continued to improve: with this version appeared a mailing list and a CVS repository!

INSTALLATION Please read INSTALL

USING KsirK Please read tooltips on buttons, the statusbars and the KsirK HTML manual.

• map scrolling : place your mouse near a window border or use your mouse wheel (with the Alt modifier for horizontal scrolling)
• armies distribution : Left-click to put an army, Right-click to remove one
• to setup a move or an attack, click and drag from the source country to the target one

CONTACT mailto:kleag@free.fr