What is RAGD?
RAGD [rag'id] stands for Rapid Adventure Game Development. It is a tool which
is used to create an adventure game. A game developer can use the graphical
development environment to specify all the game objects. These game objects are
scenes, characters, items and interactive areas in the background, denoted as
hot areas. Describing these objects can be achieved by specifying what they look
like, what can be done with them and how they interact with the user. Using the
information provided by the developer, an XML description of the game is created.
This XML description can then be translated into a specific implementation which
can be compiled and/or run using the correct engine. This translation is
achieved with an XSL stylesheet. At this point, the only engine supported is
IndianaJava Multiplatform
Adventure Game Engine. More implementations are planned for the
future.
I should mention that RAGD was my final year project for my
Computer Science Degree at
Trinity College in Dublin.
With my degree now completed I plan to continue development
on the tool on a fulltime basis, at least for the short term.
The tool is currently not ready to be used in the production
of a game, however in the meantime I shall try to make
some sort of preview available and keep the site
up to date as regards documentation and the like.
Latest Developments
November 26th 2005 - Project On Hold
Personal Update
If the lack of activity here hadn't given you a clue, there hasn't been
a whole lot of progress made on RAGD. In fact it's been a little less than
a year since I've last done any development work on the project. I was making
some good progress though, almost able to fully describe a working game and
translate it into an IndyJava game. I was working on conversations and I was
really pleased with the results.
Unfortunately, I started working in October of last year and between work
and commuting to and from work, I found I had no time to continue working
on RAGD. I have since finished my year long contract and I'm now on a trip
to New Zealand. (If you happen to be interested, I'm keeping an
online journal of sorts about my trip).
So, RAGD will see no progress for at least the next six months and possibly
for the next nine months. However, when I do return home, I'm entertaining
great hopes of getting some work done on it, to a point where I will be happy
to release at least something along with the source code.
For the time being though I'm afraid that there will be no activity here.
September 10th 2004 - Tentative Roadmap
Development Diary
Well work has been continuing as I detailed in a recent entry of my
Development Diary, "Progress is Good."
I've also created a tentative roadmap, meaning that I'm hoping to be able to
stick to it. For the time being, I'll leave it in the
"Conversations and Roadmaps" entry and maybe
next week, create an actual page by which stage I'll know how tentative it is.
September 1st 2004 - Work Recommences
Development Diary
Work recommenced today on RAGD. I've detailed what I did
in a new diary entry, entitled "At least it's a start!" If you haven't already seen it, I
added another entry a while back, "More Delays," but didn't want to
advertise it, due to the fact I hadn't done any work on the project.
June 24th 2004 - Developer's
Diary and Project Report
Website
I have added a Developer's Diary to the Forums and plan to enter lengthy updates on the
progress of development on a regular basis. The first entry is now available.
As my degree is now finished, I no longer feel the need
to keep hidden my project report. It was a bit of a rush
job unfortunately and so remains in its first draft.
However, there is some useful information in it and if you are interested
especially in what I have planned for the tool, then the chapter on
Conclusions will be of particular note. Whilst I cut out the appendix with
the source code and one or two other things, it still comes in at around
100 pages, so it's a reasonable download at just over 1MB. I have added it
to the Documentation page.
June 19th 2004 - Good News
Personal Update
Ok, some good news. First off, got my results for my
degree and passed with second degree honours, which I am more than happy
with. Secondly and more importantly, my laptop is fixed, so I am hoping
to start development of RAGD again, in the next few days.
June 7th 2004 - Exams and Degree Over
Personal Update
I finished my exams last Friday and with them over, my degree is now
completed. The next week will be spent setting various different things
in order, one of the most important priorities being getting my laptop
fixed, as it is the computer I develop on. After that is done, I will
be continuing development of RAGD.
May 1st 2004 - Report Finished
Website
Well, the major news is that I have finished my final year project report. It was
printed on Thursday and given in yesterday, a couple of hours before the deadline.
I'll add it to the site at some later date. My main priority
now is studying for and then doing my exams. After that,
I'm looking forward to getting back to working on
RAGD.
Once again updated the links section, as I suddenly remembered that
Chuck Productions were no longer
actually developing STACK and had long since moved to
AGAST to make their game Patrimonium.
Vulcan Edit, also appears to have gone the way of the dodo. Whilst it didn't appear to be
in development any longer, I still added the link, but even the page no longer exists now.
Finally, fixed some problems with the site's display
in Internet Explorer.
April 19th 2004 - Updates to Website and Progress Report
Website
Made a few updates to the links page, added a list of independent
and underground games that I am interested in and added a few other links besides. Also
found a nice small message board called PunBB and
added it to the site, notice the addition of Forums to the nav bar.
As far as progress on the project goes, it's been fairly slow on the report front,
but things are advancing now, so looking better at meeting the April 30th deadline.
Also spent some time at the weekend getting the needed libraries installed for Windows,
which wasn't so much fun. Eventually got them working and RAGD compiled, though there
are still a couple of issues as was to be expected I guess.
April 2nd 2004 - RAGD Website goes live.
Website
Threw together some sort of website, to provide some information about RAGD.
Worthy of looking at are the screenshots and the
project proposal which gives some more detail
about the idea of RAGD. I'm not sure about the colour scheme, but it is quick,
cheap and cheerful. The site is stuck with it for the time being.
