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TANTRIX PROJECTS

Volunteer projects

Over the years, many skilled Tantrix players have donated their time to help improve this web site and develop new projects. If you like to help too, there is likely to be a project "on offer" that suits your skills. Below is a listing and detailed description of projects currently planned.

We are seeking:

Assistant controllers for Tantrix tournaments
A cartoonist (to create a Tantrix character)
Better names for our Robots
Player with graphics or web design skills
Player with sound Java or Perl skills
Language translations
Participants for the "Battle of the Bots" challenge

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Assistant Controllers for Tournaments

Assistant Controllers, or "ACs" as they are usually known, are essential to the smooth running of Tantrix tournaments. We are always looking for more volunteers to take on this role, which requires reasonably frequent email access and good communication and problem-solving skills. A willingness to sacrifice a bit of popularity in the interests of fairness from time to time is also an important quality for any AC, but rest assured that the vast majority of players greatly appreciate the effort that ACs put in.

An AC will usually be responsible for 8 or 16 players in one or more sections of a tournament. Please note that you can play in a tournament as well as being one of the ACs for it. ACs responsibilities include:

making sure that all your players know what they are supposed to be doing
ensuring that players complete their matches on time or get defaulted quickly if it becomes clear that they are not going to
sorting out day-to-day problems in your sections which involve scheduling or the rules
reporting potential longer-term problems to the overall controller in good time

You will not be on your own though - complex issues with the rules can be referred to the overall controller and it is usually possible to get help with language problems or particularly difficult players from other controllers involved in the tournament. To be an AC in an international tournament, your English must be good, but if you come from a country where English is not the first language and you can help players from your country whose English is not so strong, then so much the better!

Being an AC can be a stepping stone to becoming the overall controller for one of the major championships one day, but of course you will never be pushed into taking more responsibility than you are comfortable with. Except when a big problem comes up in your section, the basic job of an AC will not take up more than a few minutes per day, though of course you can get more heavily involved if you decide you want to. So, if you have played in at least two Tantrix tournaments and you would like to be an AC in a tournament in the near future, please write to Steven Trezise at tournaments@tantrix.co.uk.

Email: Assistant Controller

Cartoonist

Are you an artist? More specifically, can you draw cartoon-style characters? Tantrix generally requires good analytical and logical skills but nobody here at Tantrix HQ can draw to save their life! Yet there would be quite a few nice opportunities to add some cartoon humour.

One idea is to develop a versatile Tantrix cartoon character, which can be used to match the "theme" of any content it is placed next to. Depending on suitability, the drawings could be used on the Tantrix web site or in the Game Pack booklet. So if you are a talented cartoonist and would like to help, then please contact us to discuss the finer details.

Email: Tantrix Cartoons

Better Robot names

WANTED! Good names for all our Robots... We spent countless hours brainstorming, but not come up with anything better than Robot 1-3. There must be better names out there. Any ideas? The names need to do all of the following:

identify the "players" as Robots.
consist of max 10 letters, no blanks in between letters, no special characters.
should not be offending to anyone.
should somehow describe 3 different levels of skill.

Additionally, if you stumble across interesting Robot graphics, please let us know. We like changing them from time to time, until one day we might find the "perfect Robot graphics" to keep longterm.

Email: Robot names

Graphics and Web Design

We always have projects on the go related to graphic and web design. Do you have design skills and would like to help spice up the site? Then we'd like to hear from you. If you have designed a Tantrix image of your own, share it with us. If it fits the overall style and colour scheme of our site, we may include it somewhere. Real-life photos with a Tantrix angle are of interest too. To add a whole page of content to the site, we can provide a page template that can be used as a base design and later be placed on the server.

Email: Graphics and Web Design

Java, Perl and one-off projects

JAVA: The interactive playing environment is written in Java and maintained single-handedly by Dave Dyer. Dave could do with some help at times, especially to implement improvements requested by players. You would need a lot of experience in Java programming and be prepared for a longterm involvement. However, you would have the freedom to choose the most interesting task from a list of proposed modifications and additions. This project would be of interest to somebody who loves playing Tantrix online and would enjoy influencing the implementation of new features. Examples of projects that players would like to see implimented can be found here.

PERL: A less committing task would be to write new, or modify existing Perl scripts. The scripts generally create html pages on demand to analyse, alter or present Tantrix data in interesting ways. The various ranking tables and the new player analysis feature are such examples. So if Perl is your cup of tea and you'd like to help with improvements in this area, get in touch.

Here is an example of a typical task:

We have archived 5 years of data for the Tantrix world map which could be used to create a short "movie" (animated GIF or MPEG) which shows the growth/change over time of the player population. The simplest way to do this would probably be to modify the map applet to produce a bunch of single frames as JPG images, then use some moviemaker software to generate a movie from the still frames.

Email: Java, Javascript and Perl

Translations

Tantrix can be played online in 14 different languages. The textual elements of the graphical interface (such as the text that appears in the lobby and game rooms) are translated, and the appropriate language is loaded according to the language selection a player makes at time of login. All translations were provided by Tantrix players.

Currently available languages are: Bahasa, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Slovak and Spanish. If your language is not on the list yet, consider providing a translation! We will send you a file which contains the required text strings. It takes only a few hours to supply a translation, however only regular players would be in a position to provide them, as a good understanding of "where the text appears in the lobby" is required.

For existing translations: please let us know if you come across any errors in the translation of your language. For example, a particular string may still appear in english, even though the rest of the text is translated. Or you may notice a typo. Of course we'd also like to hear about suggestions for improvements to a translation, if there are any quirks.

Email: Translations

The "Battle of the Bots" challenge

The aim of this project is to design a Robot that plays better than the currently reigning lobby Robot. To succeed, you will need sound java skills and quite a bit of dedication. The project has its own web page where you can find the relevant details.

Go to "Battle of the Bots"

Review Tantrix

Have you played quite a bit of Tantrix? Would you like to share your opinions (good and bad) with the general public?

We are seeking well written reviews of Tantrix as a puzzle or a strategy game for a "Reviews" page on this site. Your write-up review can be of any length and style, positive, negative or both. If we think it has useful information for the general public we will use it. Please email it to info@tantrix.com.

Email: Tantrix Reviews

Tantrix as a business

Tantrix is currently sold in over 20 countries. However, we still seek agents in countries such as Portugal, Brazil, and Chile. We are interested in talking to locally based, prospective new agents, especially if they are motivated and talented people who already know Tantrix well. Our business philosophy for spreading the fame of Tantrix is different. Instead of relying on large distributors who deal with major toy chains, Tantrix is marketed by independent and dedicated agents. If this sounds like you, then you are welcome to enquire about the process of translating and launching Tantrix in your country.

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