github.com/hannobraun/vndf-2016 ↗

About hannobraun/vndf-2016

Von Neumann Defense Force is an abandoned multiplayer game project written in Rust that was developed over several years by Hanno Braun and later joined by Chris Gill. The repository contains the complete development history from the first commit through the project's eventual abandonment, spanning thousands of commits that document the game's evolution, failures, and successes. The developers have released the code publicly in hopes that others might find it useful, acknowledging that as an in-progress project never intended for public consumption, the codebase varies in quality.

The game requires Rust nightly from around December 2015 to build and run, along with FreeType for the client. Development was managed through Pan, a command-line "IDE" tool that the team created to facilitate standard development tasks like running tests, starting the server, and launching clients. The project includes game design documentation and a newsletter archive that provide insight into the development process and creative vision.

The entire codebase is released under the CC0 license, placing it in the public domain with no restrictions. The repository serves as a comprehensive historical record of a substantial indie game development effort, including not just the final code but the full journey of design decisions, architectural choices, and the learning experience of building a networked game in Rust during its early days.