A game approach to teaching OPP and Java. It is a battle arena where student-developed agents fight each other in order to survive. The last team to be eliminated from the arena wins the challenge.

Jarena was created as a helping tool to bring a game related environment to my OOP classes. Students receive a task that consists of programming a software agent (described as a Java class) and testing it in a battle environment represented by an arena.

For more information regarding this project, check the paper Jarena: experimenting a tool for teaching object-oriented programming concepts using Java, games and software agents (BEVILACQUA, F. ; SEBBEN, A. ; TORCHELSEN, R. P; 2011).

Download the lastest version of Jarena.

Unzip the downloaded file and create a java class within the package br.uffs.cc.jarena. This class represents your agent in the battle field. Name it the way you want, e.g. MyAgent.java. This java class must be placed in the same directory of the remaining classes of Jarena (src/br/uffs/cc/jarena).

Make your agent be added to the area. For that change the file /src/br/uffs/cc/jarena/Arena.java, line 61, replacing the class AgenteDummy with your own agent. E.g.:

adicionaEntidade(new MyAgent(0, 0, Constants.ENTIDADE_ENERGIA_INICIAL));

Compile everything:

cd path/to/unzipped/jarena/folder

javac ./src/br/uffs/cc/jarena/*.java ./src/br/uffs/cc/jarena/renders/simple2d/*.java -d bin/

If you see no compiling errors, you are good to go to run the application:

cd bin

java br.uffs.cc.jarena.Main

When the application is running, you can terminate it by pressing Q. Use the left/right keys to adjust the speed of the simulation, if needed.

If you liked the project and want to help, you are welcome! Submit pull requests or open a new issue describing your idea.

Jarena is licensed under the MIT license.