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https://itch.io/jam/gamedevjs-2024 

JiGS, Drupal and Content Modelling

Today I want to discuss Content-driven development based on Drupal's Content Modelling, the foundation on which JiGS in-content engine is built. 

What is Drupal Content Modelling and what has it got to do with game design?

I told a few people on linkedIn, slack and reddit that I'd have a 1.0 version ready for launch in January. 

"I built the in-game content engines for a few MMORPG titles (NCSoft/Arenanet) and this is a genius idea. I used ruby-based engines for compatibility with MVC architecture, but being that D10 is close to MVC, I would definitely consider this approach. Great job!"

With that in mind I'm hanging out on the gamedev.js weekly discord channel
 

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Yes, after a long hiatus and a totally new rewrite, the MMORPG is soon ready for release as well as the open source codebase. 

It's been eight months since I finished my posts on architectural decisions. 
 
Since then it's mostly been a process of building out from there.

Recently I added the ability to drag and drop objects from backpack to storage in the inventory section of the game using vue draggable.

For the final week of developing the process pipeline, I copied all the config files, made some databse backups, upgraded to Drupal 10 and extended the Claro Admin template so I can clean up the paragragh types.

At this stage I can start adding random stats as fields and entities as Content types or Paragragh types. For a level designer I think Drupal makes the perfect content manager.

I've built out the Map-grids as cities with attributes and unlimited buildings as paragraphs.

I now have
* a game content type: 1 single instance of it per website.
* Map-grid content types whch are populated by Buildings via paragraphs.
* NPC content types and game items as content types.

A portal is a particular building type that when touched (collided with) allows transition from one Map-grid to another. This could be moving inside a building, moving underground or traveling to the next city.

From the single behat feature I created a game loop with 2 variables: health and strength, with attack being computed on the fly based on dice rolls.

I've built out the player profile for testing. I've experimented with players having weapons as paragraphs, which in turn are made of materials as paragraphs (to enable crafting).

The goal is to use Drupal to

• Host a game
• Create map-grids as content types
• Add items to map-grids
• Add NPCs to map-grids
• Add game attributes to user profile
• Use Drupal Groups to implement factions
• Host VueJs pages for the various buildings (form based fields and widgets) that inhabit each map

The game engine will be compatible with turn-based and real time loops. Later PhaserJs will be used for the real time graphics based modules.

Roadmap:

Over the past few weeks we,ve been tweaking our scores, and alligning the live sets with them. This includes ensuring that the CPUs don't overload, and some rendering, remoiving of plugins etc where necessary.

Ensuring there are only 8 channels per Ableton setup so they are Ableton Push friendly (I prefer to avoid scrolling horizontally with the push controllers.And deciding what software is controlled by what midi controller etc. 

Our goal this week is to make some Musique Concrete using only #Reason Studio and whatever refils and demo refils we accumulated over the years.

To prove that it is not completely useless as a DAW or VST.

The piece will be called: "Reason To Live"

The Process is to create 6 Musique Concrete 3 minute pieces that will act as source loops for the 6 glitchlab2021 main sources. The result of which will be used as party of a larger 45-60 minute piece.

This is working out well. I've gone to a kind of extreme with ReasonVST inside Live.