Re: [kidsgames] Generic adventure game engine

[Terry Hancock <hancock@earthlink.net>]

Horst H Lindner Jr wrote:
> What kind of computer systems do you want to run this program on?  I looked
> at the entity web site and looked under the requirements section of the
> application and it only works on linux and unix like operating systems.  Is
> this discussion only for the linux or unix or should it run under the
> Windows 9x -> 2000 environment as well?

Well, for me, only Linux/Unix really matters, but others may feel
differently.

> > > 4) What kind of storage structure are you storing the games
> > > in?
> > XML.

I'm not committed to this, though I have no objection to it.  However, I
don't actually know much about it, except that "It's like HTML, but
with extensible tags (meaning you can define your own)."  I've also
seen a reference to XSL, which is apparently the thing you use to
say what you want done with the tags.

> I am not well aquatinted with XML (In fact I know next to nothing), so will
> someone please give me an idea what advantages it holds over using something
> like JAVA (very portable) or some other language?  I am not trying to change

I know that some people have objections to Java because of standards
threats, and the fact that it isn't really a free standard.

> What age level of child is this set up to be played by?

Well, I originally was planning on very young, but I'm guessing age 7+
for the material in "The Light Princess."  In that age group the big
issue 
would not be true ability, but rather frustration if the interface is
too difficult.

>  I messed up on my first email in that I thought this was to be a text based
> adventure like the old infocom games, I never played the carmen santiago
> game and don't remember what it looked like.  From the descriptions I have
> read It looks like you want to create a game with each "room" in the game
> having a separate backdrop with items in the room as separate images and
> each item "lights up" or is identified by clicking on it then an action is
> selected from a side menu as to what you do with the item.  Characters in
> the game will again be images that will be in each room and can be spoken
> with and interacted with using the menu again.  Is the game on a first
> person perspective? (you cannot see your own body only what is in front of
> you) or are you going to include a character in the game that will be "you"?
> Will the characters have to move around the room or will they be static in
> each room?  I am assuming that your character will have an inventory, how
> does this show up in the game?  When an item is used "click on the hammer,
> click on hit in menu, click on mad scientist" to say hit someone over the
> head do the images have to actually do this or does a new image of the mad
> scientist just blink from standing to knocked out all in one blink?

This seems to be an accurate idea of what I had in mind for "The Light
Princess," and the viewpoint would be 3rd person.  Subjective probably
just doesn't make sense (mainly because of the technical difficulty of
producing the environment and animations, which then have to be true
3D).  I'm visualizing an "animation cel" model of the representation,
where there are layers of 2-D art that create a 3-D illusion.  Not as
cool as true 3-D rendering, but adequate for this kind of story, where
the puzzles and character interaction are the focus.  Also, I'm planning
on mostly static camera angles -- no scrolling, zooming, or other
such tricks.

> In a later email Terry Hancock wrote:
> >Of course, what I want is for someone else to actually define this
> >concept finely (i.e. create a specification), and just help us
> >to learn how to use it.  The point is, we have some kind of goal
> >for an overall game appearance (largely driven by games we've
> >seen before) and play.
 
The following was Doug Loss, actually:
> >The students are
> >planning to do the artistic, musical, and game flow work,
> >leaving jm, me, and a few others to work on the game engine

(BTW, you do realize there are TWO independent games being discussed
here -- we're just thinking of sharing the same game engine).

> Um... what languages and programming experience do you and Jim have with
> this, I only ask because the only language I have heard of is XML and that
> is a markup language, the questions about design I want to ask cannot be
> easily explained using that language basis.  I only regularly use C, C++,
> Fortran(not a favorite), JAVA(still learning) and some odds and ends.  Can
> design concept using classes, pointers and specific structures be described
> using XML??

I'm kind of out of date with respect to programming, but my
main fault will be style and project team work.  My training is as
a scientist, so I've written fairly extensive number-crunchers in 
FORTRAN and simple applications in C.  I have student-level experience 
with BASIC, Pascal, and C++.  I've also learned a number of specialized 
languages like IRAF and IDL for handling astronomical data.  I guess
I'd call C my "native programming language" (I'm not too happy with
FORTRAN -- I'd just as soon leave it in my past).

I'm currently surveying a number of languages: Lisp, Logo, Prolog,
Modula-2, Forth, to get an idea of what they're good at, but I still
feel pretty clueless about all of them.  I'm pretty excited about
the "agent based" programming concepts as applied to robotic AI,
and I will be learning this stuff for that reason. However, I don't
think I really have a handle on it yet. I'm also interested in 
the "Web" family of "literate programming" systems.  

The real issue is not my understanding of programming concepts or
languages, but rather the amount of time I would have to commit
to such a project.  Researching all those languages, and a wide
range of AI, machine-learning, and robotics topics is keeping
me pretty busy right now. I don't mind doing a little scripting,
or having to learn a simple new grammar if I have to, but I want
keep my game contribution to the artistic side (and possibly
organizing, moderating, and cheerleading :) ).

My fault with respect to team work is that I basically haven't
done it -- my projects have all been of the lone programmer type. 
Thus I have zero experience with things like CVS.  I do hope to
learn such stuff, and I think this project might help me with
that.

I will probably also be working on heavier-weight open source
development projects at the same time, which will have direct
bearing on my future paying work. The main one being a new 
language/CASE tool for a specific kind of programming, this 
is "Arachne" -- look for it to appear on Source Forge later
this year or early next, when I've got a better idea of what
it's supposed to be. This is ambitious, and time-consuming,
and it actually might make money for me, which is why I'm not
going to split my time into thinking about a game engine! 
Theoretically, the character behaviors I talked about could
be programmed fairly efficiently in Arachne, but I don't
think it'll be ready in time to be useful -- rather, I
think that learning other methods will make designing Arachne
easier.

For me, the fun part of the game is the graphic art and animation,
not the software that propels it, but clearly the engine has got
to be there.  I am told that the Linux game world is brimming over
with programmers willing to develop game engines, but scarce in
artistic and writing talent, so it seems evident that my greater
valued contribution to this kind of project would be artistic.

Also, that's the fun and relaxing part of it, which gives me
a break from all the heavy thinking going into my other project.

Since there appears to be sufficient interest, I'm going to spend
some time wicking up a website for "The Light Princess," and
we'll start working on an HTML storyboard/animatic for the opening
sequence to give people a teaser for what we're trying to do,
along with an accumulation of the FAQs I'm getting.

The website will probably take a week or two, but then I'll post the
URL here -- it'll probably be set up as a Source Forge project
(as soon as I figure out how to do that -- I'm signed up, but
I haven't done anything with the account yet :) ).  The storyboard
may take longer, but don't panic, we're working on it.

-- 
Terry Hancock
hancock@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~hancock/index.html
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