Drupal RPG

It's now (sort of) possible to create characters, rooms, exits, and move around in RPG. I've been breaking up the code into various contributed modules, introducing in the newest release: RPG Action, RPG Event, RPG Skill, and the rudiments of a ruleset built on top of Drudge: MUDSlinger, which introduces basic combat. I've been adding new hooks to allow modules to interact more simply to create more complex results. I'm also moving things in the direction of Drupal 6.

You may now create objects with the RPG module. The Create RPG Object link at /rpg/create will list the available types, and after clicking on a link, you can fill out the forms. You can browse created objects at View RPG Object /rpg/view, and view/edit individual objects from there.

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.

(Crossposted at dgo)

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

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 gdo.

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.

Drudge is the first Ruleset I'm designing, to give an idea of how things will evolve. From the include file:

<?php
/**
* Drudge -- Drupal RPG Universal DIY Gaming Engine
* This ruleset borrows liberally from F.U.D.G.E.
* which is an open source generic RPG ruleset.
* Read more at wikipedia[1]
*/
?>

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fudge_die

After actions are done, the next concept I want to tackle are Rulesets. Games built with the RPG will have a Ruleset, which may be unique to the site, shared with other sites, or a combination. Rulesets are the Actions, Events, and basic Objects that build the world for that site. They may be imported and exported, either through a form text area or with an include file. Once in the site, they may be customized using the various administration screens.

Objects may refer to 'resources' in the game, for things such as 'sprites' (graphics for display or animation), 'scripts' (php scripts that may be run at certain times), and 'nodes' (which refer to Drupal nodes, for use as the designer deigns).

Modules may define a new resource, using a hook (something like hook_rpg_resource). Once available, objects may or may not be supplied a hook by that module, allowing such things as an object to have a default sprite assigned for display.

So I realized recently that even though I had things working here in the admin screens, they wouldn't work from a new install. I'm in the middle of writing a 'bootstrap' routine that will get called during the installation of the module to ensure the type tables are properly initialized and populated with module pre-defined types.

If you're following along with your own installation and come up with a memory out error or 500 error, you'll need to run rpg_types(null, false, true); until I get it fixed. Devel.module is your friend.

Aaron

Web Game Dev has launched recently. Looks like an interesting resource. They have an affiliate program too. Not sure if that's good or bad, but here's my link for what it's worth.

From their site:

The RPG module is nearing an official 'Alpha' release. There are still a few things to flesh out, and I'll go over them in some detail soon. Here are some notes for fleshing out Attributes, which will be required before creating Actions and Modifiers. After those three sections of code have been finished, we should be ready to make some test game platforms!

Attributes
Attributes are defined by types, and may be overridden by descendant types. Objects will inherit the attributes of all its parent types. The default value of an attribute will be set by the type.