Post by jsager on Jul 7, 2008 14:02:47 GMT
There are many possible ways to serve up the content of the Lone Wolf series. From its original incarnation as paper books, the saga of Lone Wolf has moved online into HTML format through the work of Project Aon.
However, there exists the desire to both create and play Lone Wolf in a variety of other formats, both already existing and yet to be created. Whether the content is served up on a Nintendo DS, an installed application, or a website, the end goal is to programatically represent the Lone Wolf games, making them more like a video game, in that the Action Chart, combat, and other "statkeeping" elements are automated.
Unfortunately, there is currently no easy way to do this. It's not that the programming of such a game is a particular challenge, the problem has to do with the underlying data.
The underlying data that serves as the backbone for the Project Aon website is currently built with XML. While XML is a good, language agnostic data storage format, the problem is with the content of the XML itself.
Project Aon's current version of the LoneWolf XML is more concerned with presentation than programming logic. It contains markup that is designed to allow a parser to render "dumb" HTML (or other) pages that contain all of the necessary human readable text, but no gameplay information.
In order to turn this into a playable game, the authors of the current reader projects have been forced to re-adapt each book, a painstaking process in which they duplicate each other's efforts.
The goal of the Common Navigation File Project is to codify the gameplay requirements of the Lone Wolf books in a machine readable format so that they can be used by any existing or forthcoming reader project.
To that end, there are a number of projects that must be undertaken.:
If you have questions, want to help, or want to use the final products, you've come to the right place.
However, there exists the desire to both create and play Lone Wolf in a variety of other formats, both already existing and yet to be created. Whether the content is served up on a Nintendo DS, an installed application, or a website, the end goal is to programatically represent the Lone Wolf games, making them more like a video game, in that the Action Chart, combat, and other "statkeeping" elements are automated.
Unfortunately, there is currently no easy way to do this. It's not that the programming of such a game is a particular challenge, the problem has to do with the underlying data.
The underlying data that serves as the backbone for the Project Aon website is currently built with XML. While XML is a good, language agnostic data storage format, the problem is with the content of the XML itself.
Project Aon's current version of the LoneWolf XML is more concerned with presentation than programming logic. It contains markup that is designed to allow a parser to render "dumb" HTML (or other) pages that contain all of the necessary human readable text, but no gameplay information.
In order to turn this into a playable game, the authors of the current reader projects have been forced to re-adapt each book, a painstaking process in which they duplicate each other's efforts.
The goal of the Common Navigation File Project is to codify the gameplay requirements of the Lone Wolf books in a machine readable format so that they can be used by any existing or forthcoming reader project.
To that end, there are a number of projects that must be undertaken.:
- All of the items in the LoneWolf games must be rendered into a readable data format.
- A format must be devised for the LoneWolf XML that will contain both presentation and gameplay data without compromising either.
- The existing LoneWolf XML must be converted to the new format in close conjunction with the team at Project Aon.
- 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.
If you have questions, want to help, or want to use the final products, you've come to the right place.
