Bash Rabbits

Bash Rabbits is a game that is played in your file system. The goal is to catch and tag as many rabbits as possible, while avoiding killing too many.

How to Install

If you have Go installed, you can run go get github.com/mpatraw/bashrabbits. Or you can grab one of the binaries here.

If you used Go to get the binaries, and you have your Go bin directory in your PATH variable you should be ready to play. If not, you will need to add the binaries to your PATH variable. Moving rabbit to /usr/bin/ works too.

How to Play

rabbit offers a couple of commands to find and catch rabbits. The first and most obvious of which is rabbit check which checks the current directory for a rabbit. If there is one, you will see "A rabbit is here!!". You only have a few seconds to either catch it or tag it.

Spotting:

You can spot rabbits doing a rabbit check in a directory. Only a few rabbits will exist at any given time (1-15), all of which will never go below your home directory ($HOME). Generally the rabbits will move about an area slowly, only doing 1-2 directory hops every few minutes. The only time they move quickly is when they're spotted, once they leave (a few seconds later) they could be almost anywhere in your home tree.

Tracking:

Rabbits leave behind tracks whenever they move around. These tracks fade fast so you if you see some, the rabbit will be sticking around for awhile. Rabbit tracks can be seen "ascending" or "descending". Ascending means moving up a directory (cd ..), descending is the opposite (cd some_dir).

Catching:

When you see a rabbit, you have a short amount of time (roughly 5 seconds) to try to catch the rabbit (rabbit catch). You have a chance to catch it.

Tagging:

Another option is to tag a rabbit. Right now it does very little except you can see familiar rabbits and see how far they've hopped (rabbit tag downloads). There's a 100% to tag but you have to tag within the same 5 second window that you have when catching, otherwise the rabbit fled.

Killing:

Killing rabbits is a danger. You can kill a rabbit (accidentally or intentionally) by destroying where they are, either by a mv or a rm -r. One goal is to avoid killing as many rabbits as possible, but sometimes it's just unavoidable. :(

Flags & Commands

Flags

• -a: Adds ASCII graphics at the end of commands.

Commands

• check: Checks the current directory for a rabbit.
• catch: Attempts to catch a rabbit in the current directory.
• tag "string": Tries to tag the rabbit in the current directory with "string".
• stats: Prints the stats of rabbits seen, caught, killed, etc.

Extras

Obviously typing these out everytime you're in a directory is tiring, so you can add this to your .bashrc file.

cdrabbit() {
	cd $*
	rabbit check
}
lsrabbit() {
	ls $*
	rabbit check
}
alias cd='cdrabbit'
alias ls='lsrabbit'
alias tagr='rabbit tag'
alias catchr='rabbit catch'

Or if you use rc, add this to .rcrc.

fn cd { builtin cd $*; rabbit check }
fn ls { /bin/ls $*; rabbit check }
fn catchr { rabbit catch }
fn tagr { rabbit tag $* }

Example Session

; ls
go  mine  others
; cd mine
; cd ..
; cd others
A rabbit is here!!
(_/  _#
'.'_( )
; catch
You caught the rabbit!
_________
| ()|() |
+---+---+
|(")|(")|
---------
; rabbit stats
Rabbits
...spotted:    10
...caught:     4
...killed:     1
; ls
dwm
; cd ..
; ls
go  mine  others
; cd ..
A rabbit is here!!
(_/  _#
'.'_( )
; catch
The rabbit got away...
  o __(\\
   ) _ --
 //    \\
;

How does it Work?

Don't worry, there aren't actually rabbits in your directories. The program keep a record of where every rabbit is and its state in $HOME/.rabbit, and moves and spawns new ones when necessary.

Future

Some planned features:

• Multiplayer with website and leaderboard!
• Traps. You have a limited number and you can lay one down in a directory, if a rabbit ever moves over that directory, it gets stuck and can't move. You should check you traps often so you don't accidentally kill the rabbit (starvation).
• Zombie Rabbits. Killed rabbits come back to life to kill other rabbits, racking up the rabbit death toll. So you should try hunting and kill these in particular. They should be easier to find than normal rabbits (making noise, or whatever).
• Colored Rabbits. Rabbits can have a random basic color, and when two of them meet, they fuse and create a new, more complex color. Some colors are difficult rare to find and catch.
• Items. You can find items to help your search for rabbits. You can also trade caught rabbits for items.
• Tagged rabbits are easier to find again.
• Foxes. They kill rabbits and every now and then can steal your caught rabbits.
• Cute spiders? /// ^ oo ^ \\

Thanks

To bh, for some of the rabbit ASCII art.