|
Post by alderaine on May 28, 2010 8:41:37 GMT
Is it possible to consider two views of the software - one to view from an iPhone, and a different view for web browsers?
|
|
|
Post by squish on Jun 14, 2010 20:16:47 GMT
Hi Kraagenskul, Welcome to the boards. Glad you're willing to coordinate this project. As alderaine has suggested, this project has lacked a point man (all credit to you alderaine for getting this off the ground in the first place though ). Each of us, including myself, would quite happily go off and do our own thing only to come back and find that not all the pieces fit together. I personally don't have much time to spend on this project as I would like at the moment. Course studies are the priority at the moment. Anyway, good luck.
|
|
|
Post by squish on Jun 14, 2010 21:30:18 GMT
Hi alderaine,
I've created a UML diagram of a proposed model of the structural and some game logic elements for the new XML format that I would like to share but I'm not sure how to include it in my post if that's suitable.
What is the best way to do this bearing in mind that the dimensions of the image are quite large although the file size is small (only 240KB)?
Thanks
|
|
|
Post by alderaine on Jun 15, 2010 8:57:43 GMT
Hi The best way would probably be through a staff account. If you don't have one yet, jot a line to projectaon@freelists.org stating the reason for the request, and one should appear in due course J.
|
|
|
Post by squish on Jun 16, 2010 7:30:10 GMT
Thanks alderaine,
|
|
|
Post by alderaine on Aug 18, 2011 13:56:04 GMT
I can't remember if I saw this circulating - did this ever go ahead? Worth posting the URL here if it did
|
|
|
Post by squish on Nov 12, 2011 15:57:25 GMT
Hi alderaine, I've not done anything about this yet. I've been busy with course work and exams this year. Thanks
|
|
|
Post by alderaine on Nov 14, 2011 11:56:40 GMT
No problem at all
|
|
|
Post by beeblbrox on Apr 3, 2012 11:47:47 GMT
Hello. fightingfantasy.org webmaster here. I've just started looking into epub xml to see what prospects adapting my system of gamebook representation has for e-readers and it led me to investigate how far Aon has come along with implementing mechanisation of game mechanics since when I last investigated the focus was on making the xml specifics for the basic navigation and documentation markup. I'm very excited to see movement is now being made toward this part of the gamebook challenge, and hoped to share some of my experience, for what it's worth.
One of the first decisions I made in this challenge was basically I felt that given the extreme variations and complexities that arise in even a small selection of gamebooks that trying to xml-ify game mechanics was a pretty pointless exercise. However Aon differs in that it focusses purely on the Lone Wolf mechanics, so has some scope for possibly achieving this goal.
However I remain skeptical. I am no expert on the content of the Lone Wolf series but I'm willing to bet Dever like all gamebook authors has a penchant for 'adapting' and modifying the standard ruleset at frequent intervals - 'fight this combat with a penalty of 2', 'this weapon allows you to ignore the effects of Dragon Breath' etc. and much more complex derivations as I'm sure you're aware...
This kind of detail inevitably ends up with attempting to make a model of the un-modellable. Language processing is, imho, about the only way this can be represented faithfully, and I do know from what research I originally made in the Aon project that excrutiatingly painful effort is made to remain canonical. Typifying too much will inevitably end up with stripping out those small and delicious clauses that are half of the fun of a RPG experience.
Secondly, seperating the traditional aspects of a book read and a game play is already in place in Aon as far as I can make out. Littering your documents with game mechanic specific tags I genuinely believe would be a bad move. It makes the e-book transition hard if not impossible, and the number of tags required will grow at a rate you will not want.
Anyway, enough of my Denethor impression. The reason I took the path I have taken was modelled on html itself, specifically the <script> tag. There's no point for the html authors to try and second guess what may happen inside those tags (the possibilities are infinite), so there's just the one tag where 'something scripty happens'. This is the reason I have effectively 4 or 5 gameplay tags only in my document markup that encompass everything, marking up the adventures I simply say 'something gameplay-like happens here'.
It's the KISS approach.
Of course inside those tags it gets pretty f*ing messy. However you are going to require a full blown script processor/programming langauge to handle anything you mark up in XML anyway so hell, make it a script langauge from the get go. It allows for absolutely anything to happen in terms of gameplay mechanics and keeps documents relatively clutter free and easy to process. Much easier to process.
Having said all that there is some point in some XML specific to gameplay especially in this instance, and that is making the documents human-readable. There are commonalities and a basic model - the inventory, the character stats, combats etc. which scream to have some kind of addressing, and with a Lone Wolf specific ruleset the scope for variation is less than ff.org. XML'ing these basics will not make all things possible but does allow for more human readable markup at most instances (the rulesets don't usually get bent that often, unless you're trying to code up a very enthusiastic amateur writers take on the Lone Wolf system... *sigh*).
Anyway, this was just an introductory ramble. I hope some of my experience and reasoning is of some use to the project. I have yet to implement a Lone Wolf specific mechanic on my system, though it is certainly hoped to do so as I have a handful of amateur Lone Wolf adventures on my hard drive. I am currently working on an abstract character statistics library however and really want to wait until I have finished that (and probably re-work the paperdoll inventory system) before attempting to code a Lone Wolf adventure. If there's any contributions I can make please let me know.
|
|
|
Post by alderaine on Apr 3, 2012 12:29:57 GMT
Hi Beeb
The original idea of the CNF was to separate game mechanics from book text. The book XML could be updated with very simple tags, much as you describe, and the CNF would essentially tell the software reader what to do with those tags. At the moment, each solution "codifies" the books within an internal "database" - the format of which is different for every solution, but they are all doing the same thing. Seventh Sense has proved the basic principles to be robust, and will most likely eventually evolve into a reusable model - but it depends what else comes along in the interim! If an open source solution were developed that worked for all gamebooks, that would of course be even better!
|
|
|
Post by beeblbrox on May 1, 2012 18:38:04 GMT
Open Source, that would be nice... my code is so far from being suitable for open source at this point it's untrue. Though anyone in the gamebook community is welcome to look at it.
|
|
|
Post by tonib on Feb 26, 2017 14:09:32 GMT
I suspect I come here some years late, but, hey, nobody's perfect. Warnings: (1) My English is awful. (2) I didn't read all the thread, just some (most) of the messages. I did some kind of "game scripting" to play Lone Wolf books 1-4, and I'm now writing the 5th book. Right now, this scripting seems to accomplish all the requirements. I didn't read later books, so my scheme can be completely wrong for them: * All of the items in the LoneWolf games must be rendered into a readable data format. The current XML book sources, for me, are enough to render a user interface. I use them, raw, thanks to the Lone Wolf Adventures application. * A format must be devised for the LoneWolf XML that will contain both presentation and gameplay data without compromising either. Not agree, due to a simple reason: Translations. The game play is language independent. So presentation and gameplay should be separated, and gameplay should be common to all languages. And, remember, there are OFFICIALLY supported languages alternative to English (Spanish). * The existing LoneWolf XML must be converted to the new format in close conjunction with the team at Project Aon. The current format is OK for me, you just need add more files for gameplay support. I have used XML, because it's a platform independent format, and Lone Wolf books did used it too for presentation. * Tutorials, supporting files such as schemas, and sample code must be generated in order to explain to would-be reader designers how best to utilize the resources which we provide. Agree, and I have none (well, I have some documentation, but unfinished) What I have: A game play scripting for books 1-4, and 5 (unfinished right now): - The game objects definition: github.com/tonib/kaichronicles/blob/master/www/data/objects.xml- Book 1 scripts: github.com/tonib/kaichronicles/blob/master/www/data/mechanics-1.xml- Book 2 scripts: github.com/tonib/kaichronicles/blob/master/www/data/mechanics-2.xml- Book 3 scripts: github.com/tonib/kaichronicles/blob/master/www/data/mechanics-3.xml- Book 4 scripts: github.com/tonib/kaichronicles/blob/master/www/data/mechanics-4.xml- Book 5 scripts (Unfinished): github.com/tonib/kaichronicles/blob/master/www/data/mechanics-5.xmlDocumentation ( unfinished ): - github.com/tonib/kaichronicles/blob/master/www/data/README-mechanics.md- github.com/tonib/kaichronicles/blob/master/www/data/README-objects.mdThis is just a proposal for a game play scripting scheme. Thank you for reading
|
|
|
Post by tonib on Feb 28, 2017 19:04:34 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Nym90 on Feb 28, 2017 21:59:32 GMT
I'm not a programmer, but I find having a comprehensive list of all items that can be found in the books very useful. Thanks for posting this.
|
|
|
Post by tonib on Mar 19, 2017 21:41:28 GMT
|
|