ObjMud

ObjMud is a framework to provide a text-based adventure game interface into a business model. It is geeky as all get out. Its genesis was to support the Zormk gem, which provides a Zork-like interface into ActiveRecord (and potentially other ORM) models. Beyond being an extremely geeky exercise in mental masturbation, it actually serves a useful purpose (being able to make sense of a really complex rails app with 400+ models) at least in the Zormk case. in a complicated enterprisy rails application (400+ models, some with like 12 mixins, etc...).

How it Works

The user enters the ObjMud environment at a location, which is bound to a business object. The viewer is presented with a text rendering of the business object at their current location. The viewer uses a move command to navigate the graph of locations and paths. At each location, they have a re-rendering of the business object at their location. The viewer can terminate the session with a quit command.

Demo Session

rake demo will start a demo session of the interface from the command line terminal. The business object graph are of Persons that have relationships to other Persons. There are 3 persons in the graph. Dick, Jane and Bob, each with relationships between them. You can test out an ObjMud session as follows:

> rake demo
Welcome!  The minions of your project grow stronger...
[Dick(relatives: Jane, Joe)]
  Paths: Jane(relatives: Dick, Joe), Joe(relatives: Dick, Jane)

> help
Available commands: back, exit, go, help, look, ls, move, quit

> look /paths/i
  Paths: Jane(relatives: Dick, Joe), Joe(relatives: Dick, Jane)

> go jane
You move to Jane(relatives: Dick, Joe)...

[Jane(relatives: Dick, Joe)]
  Paths: Dick(relatives: Jane, Joe), Joe(relatives: Dick, Jane)

> go joe
You move to Joe(relatives: Dick, Jane)...

[Joe(relatives: Dick, Jane)]
  Paths: Dick(relatives: Jane, Joe), Jane(relatives: Dick, Joe)

> back
You move to Jane(relatives: Dick, Joe)...

[Jane(relatives: Dick, Joe)]
  Paths: Dick(relatives: Jane, Joe), Joe(relatives: Dick, Jane)

> exit
Goodbye!  The minions of your project grow weaker...
>

Configuration

Configuration is done via an ObjMud.configure call. If part of a rails application, this should go in an initializer. Here is the default values and comments for each of the configuration options.

• config.location_initializer: locations are lazily iniatized whenever a user enters obj_mud, or moves down a path. This callback allows you to initialize the business object of a location as appropriate to your use. By default, it does nothing.
• config.renderer: What will render business objects to the viewer. The default renderer output can be seen in the demo.
• config.path_detected: Callable that accepts a user input and a path and returns true if the input identifies the path or false otherwise. By default, if the input string matches the path's object (ignoring case), then this returns true.
• config.hello_msg: A message to display to users when they enter obj mud
• config.goodby_msg: A message to display to users when they leave the obj mud

In practive, you will probably need to provide a location_initializer, renderer and path_detected callable appropriate to your context. You can look at the demo rake task to see a working configuration example.

The configuration object passed to the block given the configure call is backed by OpenStruct, so you are free to stick whatever other information you need into the config to allow any further customizations to do their job.

ObjMud.configure do |config|
  config.location_initializer = lambda {|location| do_something}
  config.renderer = MyRenderer
  config.path_detected = lambda {|input, path| do_something_else}
  config.arbitrary_config_value = "Foo"
end

Commands

Commands are actions that the user can perform. They should probably inherit from ObjMud::Controller::Base which will give access to the controller invoking the command (which gives access to everything else) and configuration values.

There are 3 hard requirements of command classes:

1. It implements a for_command_inputs class method that returns an array of symbols that user input should match to invoke the command.
2. It implements a perform instance mthod that executes the command.
3. It registers itself with the Commands module via ObjMud::Controller::Commands.register(self)

Here is an example command definition:

class DanceCommand < ObjMud::Controller::Commands::Base
  def self.for_command_inputs
    [:dance]
  end

  def perform(*tokens)
    controller.display_output("You dance around")
  end

  ObjMud::Controller::Commands.register(self)
end

Contribution

Fork, branch, commit, code, test, push, send pull request.

License

ObjMud is copyright © 2012 by Lance Woodson. It is free software and may be redistributed under the terms in the LICENSE.txt file.