Hi all,
I've noticed that the LW saga is still going hot on PA with recent (and
ongoing) plans to publish book number 29. That's truly awesome news! So I
thought I could also offer my help in some of the gamebook related areas.
You might remember that few years ago I created a tool for displaying
gamebook flowcharts in similar form that you have on your website (e.g.
https://www.projectaon.org/en/svg/lw/01fftd.svgz) but with more info
regarding combats, gained or needed items and disciplines, interesting stats
etc. The project "lay dormant" (not being a native speaker I confess to
actually having learned this phrase from the LW books :-)) for a long time
(actually it seems it has already been 7 years...) but the recent PA
developments gave me the extra incentive to finally finish the project, that
is ideally have it published on PA to be available for the general audience.
There are several questions:
- First, whether there's actually still an interest on your side for such
kind of project at all. E.g. someone else might already finilaze similar
software.
- If you think it's still worth it then there's the question of how the
final product should look like. There are several options:
-- Continue with the existing server side tool and generate static SVG
images. The tool is written in perl but as I would have to update it to the
newer version anyway I would be also willing to rewrite to some more modern
language if desired, e.g. python.
-- Write simple html app with basic options to configure the looks of the
flowchart, e.g. don't show combat nodes, show shortests paths according to
various criteria etc. The SVG images would still be generated on the server.
-- Write modern JS app to achieve better functionality and interactivity.
This would be the most problematic option for me because I currently know
very little JS but one has to learn new stuff all the time :-) Also there
might be other people more skilled in this willing to help at least with the
overall app atchitecture (the actual flowchart content being delivered by
me).
I won't bother the general audience of this mailing list with more technical
stuff but I'm willing like to discuss the matter further in smaller circle
if desired.
Now regarding the source files used for the flowchart generation: the doc of
my tool says it expects each book to be given in one single xml with rich
annotations but I don't see these files available anymore. The full-featured
edition contains xmls but only in one file per each section. The simpler
editions hold only simple html. So was this single page rich xml edition
removed or I just remember it wrong?
Also I remember that in the past we've talked about making the xmls even
richer with various info that is now being hardcoded in the tool or
extracted from the plain text in quite hackish and britle way, e.g. gained
or lost items, needed skills, combat modificators etc. I guess this kind of
info would be very useful also for the guys developing various gaming aid
software (LW saga, Kai chronicles etc.). Are there any plans in this area?
If not would it make sense to start a discussion how to proceed in this?
Anyway, congrats and thanks to your amazing work here on PA and looking
forward to possible future cooperation!
For Sommerlund and Kai
David Kubecka