Archive for November, 2006

I said I’d take a stab at describing/elaborating on Astrum Futura… Bear in mind I am a self-professed verbosity addict .

Before I do, I made a small minimalist technical release you can download to look at the source code (since SVN is awaiting an approved Sourceforge project application). The release only handles basic signups and logins, but it’s enough to show how all the myriad pieces slot together. See the README file for the brief installation instructions.

astrum.tar.gz
astrum.zip

Back on track. Astrum Futura is slated as a next generation PHP web based game. I say next generation for an ensemble of reasons:

1. Written in PHP 5 (intended dep is PHP 5.2.0)
2. Loosely coupled Object Oriented Design
3. Unit Tested using SimpleTest (current CVS)
4. Will implement an AJAX interface using Prototype/Scriptaculous
5. Primary dependency is the Zend Framework (the SVN trunk version)

Notably, I did not say next-generation PHP "application". Don’t go quoting me out of context now…

For an informed professional PHP developer, these aren’t new. But for an open source PHP game they almost certainly are. Show of hands; has anyone seen, installed, or worked on a truly professional-like open source game project in PHP? I can think of only one or two (no names, no assumptions ). The rest are functional, and usually devoid of much professionalism in terms of design, good practice, and maintenance. Again, no names. An unprofessional project does not mean the developers are unprofessional – merely that they have taken shortcuts on a hobby project.

Back to AF, we’ve completely dropped PHP4 support – probably the one decision most folk will question. Our reasoning is quite simple. PHP5 has a vastly superior OOP model and not using it in this day and age just because shared hosts do not all support it is becoming a sad unreasonable constraint. I suspect PHP5 will see accelerated adoption – so hopefully it’s not such a painful constraint except in the short term.

Now for the game description. Astrum Futura will be an open source space strategy played from a browser. Although comparisons with Quantum Star SE are likely inevitable, I’d like to cut off that line of thought immediately. You can quote me on any number of times saying QS is a poorly designed heap of spaghetti code. It always has been.

AF is not another QS/SE clone – we’re starting from a blank slate. This doesn’t mean all the concepts from QS Evolved are vanishing – just the poorly designed code and limitations on gameplay. AF will implement Fleets, we’ll still have clans, planets and funky space opera plotlines. The problem is that QS was stuck in a rut – too many expectations, vague ideas, and dependencies from the Solar Empire era. The name change is more of a reinvention of the whole project – one I believe will lead to a vastly superior game with far more depth and scope. We want more fun, more strategy, more micromanagement (optional), more tactics, more reasons to play and more methods of winning. We want a game worth playing by addicted game junkies who’ll have apoplexy if it goes offline for more than a few seconds… Where would the world be without overambitious goals?

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