KoDP VM (was KODP Flash)

From: Charles <usetex_at_...>
Date: Sun, 06 Dec 2009 03:17:16 -0000

David Dunham wrote:
> There is no game. KoDP for iPhone/Flash/Mac OS X does not exist (and
> none of the old UI code can be used). What if you wanted to make it,
> but only had (say) 6 months? You're not subtracting from the CD game,
> you're adding from zero. I recall the tula screen took a long time to
> get right. Is it in your new game? If so, what isn't?

There is always another way...

If changing the existing game is not an option, it may be possible to redeploy it in a way that gives it new possibilities. Warning: handwavy tech talk follows:

Consider the following:

  1. The KoDP executable, mounted in a custom VM, say running the windows version in Wine on top of a particular xen linux vm setup;
  2. An event model, consisting of inputs that model mouse clicks on KoDP's picture of the window, and outputs, which consists of relaying updates to the screen, and saying what music is playing;

This already would provide a basis for, say, a web-based front-end to the game, which might allow A# to host an inexpensive, subscription-based KoDP league gaming service, which with a little luck might allow David to inch perhaps a little nearer to commercial sanity for the KoDP misadventure ;->

And with:
  3. A save-game object model; and
  4. An event model semantics, which might figure out what is happening in the game based on changes to save-game state and what picture file the KoDP process last accessed,

... we can add new features to the old: adding events to heroquests, allowing the events of one KoDP session to influence what is going on in another, tweaking the game model of KoDP.

This should not require dissassembly of the KoDP image, etc, only system-level hackery. Trivial: far from it. But much, much less work than proposals that presuppose a reimplementation of what David & his team have already done.

And to dream: if A#'s KoDP gaming network became the offbeat-FRPG's answer to WoW, well, then maybe serious development of KoDP2 could be funded...

> I've always had the pipe dream that KoDP could be nothing but the
> stories, though I suspect that can't work. The strategy game really
> does tie them together and give them meaning.

Yesss... I've wondered about the possibility of writing interactive fiction, something in the Zork/Sorceror vein, but with some sort of clan dynamics. It might be possible to get closer to "nothing but stories" in this format: some interactive fiction does have this quality.

Charles Stewart
Berlin

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