game engines

From the new Game Queue module project page:

Dependent on Game Clock and Game Character.

A Game Queue will act on clock ticks, allowing game characters to add actions to a queue, which will be processed in turn.

Actions take 1 or more Action Points (AP). A character is allowed 1 or more AP to be processed in a single tick.

Before processing, each action is also assigned an Initiative weight.

Modules wishing to make use of this should implement hook_game_queue_action($action). See documentation within module for more info.

Just released the new Game Character module.

From the project page:

The Game Character module provides a structure and API for Game Character nodes on your site. You can set one or more node types to be Game Character types from the Game Character administration page, at admin/settings/game_characters. At that point, any nodes of that type will be set as game characters, which may be activated by the owning user, or any user with administrative permissions.

I've just committed the Game Clock module. The module is fully functional, except that you cannot edit existing clocks from the UI yet. (That should come later this week, allowing for an initial official release).

The module is a gaming utility, that allows the creation of game clocks. Game clocks may be used for various purposes, such as keeping an in-game calendar, tracking game effects and events, and limiting characters to acting at a slower pace suitable for a web-based game.

This is as good a time as any. The RPG module is in official Alpha. You can make characters, walk around, and pick up & drop objects now. The rest is window dressing... ;) I've attached a screenshot here.

You can make a character at DrupalRPG.org. If you do, some caveats: [EDIT] set the 'PC' attribute to your user uid on the character creation page[/EDIT]; make sure to set a location to one of the two rooms currently available; when you walk around, the messages don't work entirely. If you take something, make sure you leave things on the floor for other people to take.

There's only a few rooms right now, and a few objects. Things will probably get cluttered very quickly as people make characters and objects, so I'll probably have to do some housecleaning soon.

Here's a basic roadmap of the RPG module. Much of this is complete or in process. You can build a fully functional game when everything here is done. In particular, the first ruleset, Drudge, will make a lot of this much easier, by having pre-defined basic types that will probably be useful to most RPGs. There's no timeline for this -- some tasks are easy, some more difficult, some still need to be spec'd. Also, depends on when folks have time to work.

Meanwhile, if you want to test out current development, go ahead and try out the ruleset imports, and type/attribute edits. There are other links in there, but they are in various states of disrepair. If you do this, expect to need to wipe out your database tables later -- some things are still in flux, and I'm not yet writing update functions.

(Cross-posted at Drupal RPG)

Aaron Winborn
Drupal RPG, home of the RPG module.
Spindowners, a sci-fi web rpg being developed with the rpg module.

The latest commit brings things even closer. Rulesets may be imported from modules now. A new module has been created in the package (RPG Base Classes), separating the base classes from the core module. When attributes are created from these classes, tables are created both to create the new type/attribute combination, and to store data in rpg objects.

So now the ruleset idea is maturing, and I've entered a new module into the rpg project of the repository, for Drudge (rpg_drudge.module in the rpg/rulesets folder).

Workflow: lower-order object types will be part of a basic system, possibly Drudge or possibly something lower than that. You may 'import' a ruleset of objects & game rules from such a module, which uses hook_rpg_ruleset. The module will have an array of types, and functions that define those types.

After a conversation with dmitrig01, I think I found the way to best integrate the flexibility I can see with the current system with the robustness & speed of using php include files that was part of RPG originally. Because I'm not near my computer this weekend, I'm going to just add some notes here directly to remind myself this direction when I get back to programming next week:

Import Rulesets

I just updated the RPG project page with a more current description. To add to the discussion, I'm cross-posting the juicy parts here and at Drupal RPG. (Sorry in advance for the spam if you're subscribed to the three posted groups...)

RPG

The engine itself does little more than provide a core to build a game with. Although it is intended to be for online RPG's, there is no reason the base couldn't be expanded to create other types of games, such as Turn-Based Strategy games, RTS games, or even slidescrollers. The engine is able to do this by providing basic functionality for administrators to create, use, and share 'rulesets'.

Rulesets are definitions of the Types, Attributes, and Actions used to create in-game objects. They may be created in forms available to game administrators, and may also be imported/exported from forms or even files. RPG Object Types follow inheritance rules, and may even include multiple parents, allowing types to share and even override attributes and actions.

For the RPG module, I just published the API, which is "bleeding cutting edge" since it is the development copy I use before it even gets committed to the CVS repository. Go take a peek!