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Re: [kidsgames] Generic adventure game engine




> But if we hope for creative, non-programmer types to write games
> for this engine, we'll need some sort of authoring tool like you
> mention.  I think this will be nearly as important as the
> engine, although the engine will have to be created first.
> We've been looking at an application framework built around XML
> called Entity <http://entity.evilplan.org>.  We haven't had time
> to go over it in detail, but to me at least it looks very
> promising as the basis for both the engine and the authoring
> tool.

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?


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

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
your mind as to languages, just trying to understand why XML.  I know that
it is related to SGML and HTML but with better data handling properties,
does it also have some sort of programming structure (loops, if statements,
case statements, pointers, class structures etc.) or will the data
processing have to be in another language as is hinted at on the web page
for entity?


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

 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?

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 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

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??

Thanks for your time.
Horst Lindner Jr.

Philosophy
"Tests are a gift.  And great tests are a great gift.  To fail the test is a
misfortune.  But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something
worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune.  If you think it is not your test
or you  think it is wrong that is one thing, maybe that is the test.  But if
it's only fear of failure--you have not the right to refuse the gift for
that.





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