Project has reached it's 0.02, (0.0x for proof of concept releases) but won't work if cloned because the repo doesn't contain the necessary subrepository, which is sitting on my computer. Getting a full game setup is a goal of the 0.1 release.
The 0.01 release contained all the code necessary to run git within a command line program. This will allow for the implementation of a game to uses git for saving game data.
The 0.02 release marks that game logic is sophisticated enough to allow player to use git within the game to acheive something impossible without it: one can now amass an arbitrarily high number of items.
The 0.1 release will definitely work on Linux, whether it gets tested on Mac, and to the degree it works with Mac installed dependencies (python 2.7) is up in the air. Windows compatiblity will depend on my getting access to a Windows machine, and the expressed interests of real Windows users.
I will start considering pull requests after the release of the 0.1 version. That's when you'll actually be able to play the game on select systems, and that's when I'll work on implementing a test suite for other users and determining a bug reporting process.
The following repo contains a program I call git crystals ('./app.py') the purpose of which is to be a text-based video game that uses git as its system for managing save data. This is to serve the following purposes.
- For beginning users of git, it provides a relatively simple way to practice using a version of git designed with beginners in mind. While git internals are sound, the terminology and interface provided to an initial user is muddy and confusing. All commands in git are in english, not the "git"-ese that inhabits technical documentation like man pages.
- For current users of git, this should be a fun puzzle game with the unusual mechanic of having game information saved in a repository rather than a file. You will have to use git's ability to enable non- linear workflow to solve game problems and discover the game's multiple endings.
The program requires a relatively up-to-date python 3 interpreter with standard library and a relatively update to date version of git installed on your system. My current dev machine is a dual-booting OS-X 10.12/ Ubuntu 18.04 system, and I'm developing this program for Linux first. As such, the program should work on any linux system with python 3.6+ and git 2.17+. As the program comes further along I will start testing on other operating systems, python versions, and git versions. To the extent that they become available. I currently have no means of testing on MS-Windows.
The program uses python as a wrapper to call git commands installed on the system. The means an unusual or unexpected git configuration might cause the program to not work. It will create a genuine repository to save your game data. It is not recommended that you use regular git on this repository. It may leave the repository in a state that I am unable to account for programatically. Furthermore, I may institute a command history feature to validate games a game has been beaten inside the interpreter.
- There are a great reduction in the available commands.
- Some commands are aliased to emphasize what's actually being done. Adding a change to the staging area is accomplished by git stage, and removing a file from the staging area is accomplished by git unstage.
- The program actually explains changes when using git diff. Rather than displaying a patch file, it explains which files are changed in what commit. While learning to read a patch file is genuinely helpful later in your git usage, it is a distraction during learning.
- The game does not allow fast-forward merges. This is to encourage new users to think of branches as separate lines of development, even if it results in empty merge commits.
- Certain options and command syntax are not quite the same.
The game uses the word
filein place where git would use--. Also, any action that makes command line get say 'are you sure?' requires the word force. So for example:git branch -D <some_branch>becomesgit force delete branch <some_branch>git checkout -f <some_branch>becomesgit force checkout <some_branch>git checkout -- <some_file.txt>becomesgit checkout file <some_file.txt>
Typing English commands is always preferred to the more flexible but higher learning curve of git as it would be called in bash. The game can be set to echo out the real command used in git.