Yeah, that was my reaction, too.
Are you able to host ASP.net apps with AJAX? Otherwise this rule would exclude ADRIFT.
They don’t necessarily have to all be on the same server tho, that’s what links are for, no?
One negative to rules 5/6 is that the ADRIFT standalone interpreter has a very nice mapping feature, but I don’t think that’s supported by the browser interpreter.
Side comment: How well does the Glulx web player support Glimmr? (Anybody using I7, consider using the Automap or Glimmr Automap extensions.)
I can host on Debian or Windows Server 2008, but…
I guess the hosting rule is, at this time, not really practical. Let’s drop the hosting rule. If you complete a game, you can host it wherever you want. I’d still like to figure out a way to authenticate players completing games.
I’ll revise the rules in the original post.
David C.
Quixe and Parchment do not yet support graphics, so Glimmr’s not compatible. Until great advances are made in javascript/hardware performance, though, I don’t see Glimmr as being a good option anyway. The better option for graphics in the javascript terps will be to implement them in javascript/HTML and trigger them from the game.
I don’t feel like an auto-generated map is really in the spirit of this comp, though. As a player, anyway, I’d much rather see an emphasis on designed maps that express something specific about the spaces they depict and the games they illustrate…
I agree–there may be too much emphasis on creating an automapper if someone wants to do something clever–and one problem I see is that we may have 2 rooms that go non-opposite directions back to each other. This may seem like an edge case, but I’d guess that someone might have a creative moment based on, say, a passage leading east then back northwest–it’d give a different map shape.
Now it’s possible to create a map of this sort of thing by hand without Mark Tilford’s extension, but it’s grossly inelegant.
This might be more work than the author needs, or it might distract from the general creativity. I have part of an example here. Am I nitpicking too much?
Many thanks.
Maps in ADRIFT 5 are preconceived rather than being auto-generated. But it’s a moot point anyway unless I can get them working in a browser by the competition. And given that I’m expecting a baby in a couple of months, I’d say the chance of that is pretty slim…
Oh, and one other nitpick – do you mean ten traversible rooms? I’m guessing yes, but…
x-x-x
| … |
x.F…x-x-x
| … |
x-x-x
For instance a game with the map above might have a fountain in the center, but also have an inform-style rule:
[code]fountain is a room. fountain is west of east bank. palace entry is east of east bank. throne room is east of palace entry.[etc.]
instead of going to fountain:
say “You don’t want to get wet. Maybe you can find someone or something that doesn’t mind?”[/code]
There are other ways to do this, like with scenery and defining actions, but here this seems simplest…
…also, placing an item in an inaccessible room called “the void” for a bit can be handy.
From what I’ve seen, the Adrift mapper is a cool tool–but I place them in the same category as autogenerated maps, because what I’m really talking about wrestling free of the box-and-whiskers paradigm. Anyway, though, congratulations on the offspring!
I think the map should show ten distinct locations…so if someone wants to bend the rule and have a “location” have one or two internal proximity locations, that would seem to meet the criteria of ten locations. You’d just have one location with extra spacing features…but the map should show this…
David C.
My Zifmia system assumes images are already posted to the website. References are in the game code. I plan to implement this down the road as being able to upload a blorb file, images contained, and unpacking everything and placing the images in the image directory and the game in my OO database.
I would assume that anyone using a javascript interpreter will need to learn to do something similar.
There’s no doubt that contest entrants will need to know or learn some rudimentary html and javascript. That’s really part of the point of this competition.
David C.
When you say “You must provide a graphical map”, do you mean in-game (i.e. only games that can be played in a browser and support graphics are valid options), or do you just mean there must be an image of the map?
Maybe you could assemble a list of some standard IF tools and whether or not they support the requirements?
I’m guessing these should all be ok
- Inform7
- TADS3.1 (but not TADS 3)
- ADRIFT 5.0
- Undum
At least if you’re not going overboard on this Ajax business (which seems pretty random). I think maybe you should specify what that means really, are you setting up a REST backend or what?
I think all of those tools will suffice. The system I’m building uses Inform 7 and a customer I/O extension and yes, I use extensive AJAX for my games. This is not necessary for everyone else. The basic Z web interpreter and “release as web page” should work for most cases in Inform 7. I am familiar with the other systems only in so much as I read blogs, so I can’t help with those.
The map should be a part of the game. If the deployment requires copying files, this should include the map. The game should play with the map either on screen or available on screen at any time.
David C.
Alright. So how do you sign up for this?
Also, if anybody needs an idea, here’s a 10-room map that I won’t be using:
http://bit.ly/xkQDsX
Please direct entry requests to textfyre.com/tenrooms/.
Keep the questions on the forum though…
David C.
Would it be acceptable to write the game in pure php/html (with no database or write permissions required)?
–gary
Is the focus here on pushing the boundaries of interaction between a game and a (possibly dynamic?) map, or just promoting the idea of a game limited in geographic scope that has a map a few clicks away?
With talk if Inform 7’s publishing system falling within the rules when you include an interpreter and a map file, it sounds like the latter, but I want to make sure: should participants focus on innovating how someone can interact with the work in the context of a modern web browser, or should they focus on creating a quality work bundled alongside a quality map?
Good question, Jeremy!
Although honestly, I don’t really care that much, to me this comp is just an opportunity to write something that hopefully will be interesting.
I’ve been thinking of writing something about a house, a bit inspired by George Perec’s La Vie: Mode d’Emploi. Of course, Perec has other types of constraints. And admittedly, what I’m doing now is not really that, it’s a much smaller thing and really something different. But I’m starting it off with one fixed boundary: that there are only ten rooms. That’s about it for me. If this is not what the comp organizer (David) was aiming for… well, boo hoo.
On the tech side though (for Inform 7), I am trying to to a dynamic little map on the side that displays where you are, and anybody else who wants to do this should be able to do something similar. My plan is to do it with just some javascript / html / css on the side that intercepts the status line to see where the player is.
See this thread for my first steps on this.
I would prefer a more traditional IF game using Inform 7, TADS 3.1, or Adrift’s web capabilities. Also, the intent is for a small game that fits on a single browser page.
David C.