A Journey Starts At Single Step - But In What Direction?

 Implementing a grand idea starts at a single step, I've said that to myself throughout the two weeks as I've begun to start working on the system that would be my attempt at Serious Game Design: Bouken Da! (You can check out the concept for that in the last entry). The challenge remained: "What would that step be?"

I contemplated the dilemma, I could try to implement a simple system myself to start off with. With all the troubles I've had over the past weeks trying to work with the Makahiki infrastructure, perhaps it would be a good idea to work from the ground up on my own, focusing on the items and the organization that I'd be use to. I had initially started to plan out working out my own form of structure using the knowledge I had gained from the lessons from Python and Django. The structure would require several of the items required and already developed in Makahiki, and eventually it became painful apparent that structuring the project on my own would be a difficult task with such time constraints. I began to rethink my plans to re-skinning and designing a system based on the Makahiki infrastructure.

While lately my skills and focus have weighed heavily on the graphical side of things, a pretty package is nothing without the good things inside. I looked into the documentation for Makahiki to how much of it was open for modification. The guide (found here) provides some insight into the system, but when it comes to modifying and adapting it to other purposes, there isn't much to work with. I looked through the code trying to understand what would be necessary to modify things more to what I would need. Eventually I had to just try to get my hands dirty and began work on trying to get things done as best I could.

That's when the roadblocks returned.

First off the gate, I began to repeat the steps to making a Makahiki installation, in doing so I ran into the immediate error that nothing was being uploaded to the Amazon S3 system (the storage area which is set up alongside Makahiki to store files). Thinking that perhaps I made an error, I attempted it again, once more giving new keys from Amazon S3, and once more from scratch using a different application name but for some reason could not upload the files. Defeated, I resigned to manually uploading files, requiring the lengthy process of installing Java into the Linux VM. Java was installed to quicken the processes, which in actuality lengthened the process, as I had to look up how to install Java and the plugin into Firefox (The Sun Java instructions for Linux Firefox do not work with the current version of Ubuntu installed on my VM). Even with Java expanding the ability to upload the necessary files directly into Amazon S3, it still required the extra step of making access to the files public so that the Makahiki installation on Heroku could access them.

Unfortunately, despite the success of this effort, some portions still remained problematic.

Going onward the least I could do was to change the landing page to portray the new intentions for the site. A quick rush to the global settings and some changes resulted in the follow format for the landing page:

And there are more problems. Though they seem rudimentary I began to see the struggles in re-formatting a system for another purpose, some things are not easily set. My glaring type aside (HajimemashitE not tA), Remnants of the Kukui Cup text were still somehow visible even after going through the settings for the landing page, I needed to investigate the code to find the html title (which current says "Bouken: Welcome to the Kukui Cup," and the "Contact the Kukui Cup Administrators," on the bottom. I attempted to find any place which these settings were defined, and consulted the manual once again to no avail. I attempted to sort out the code for the moment, after wading through the other problems felt cosmetic, so I resigned to let it go and explore changing some internal settings.

To provide a good perspective change I thought to change the game type to at least provide a surface change by modifying the "Energy Games" used by the Kukui Cup to a "Language Game" Providing a simple base system that I could modify to the different formations I'd like for Bouken. Changing the game info within the system seems like a managable way to do this (as my venture into the Python code would require me to be much more cautious) and so I went to change the game and the widgets related to it so I could tell the difference.

Upon changing the name, an interesting event happened as the game options no longer appeared in the game settings.

Changing the settings back had reverted the appearance of Energy Games in the settings, but left me uncertain as to what I could do to maintain the management of games that were not technically "Energy" or "Water" but could be properly classified as the fields I would want to focus on.

(When changed back to Energy Games, the options return)

At this point, I felt at a loss for what I could do to remedy the situation without diving directly into the code and risking breaking another Makahiki installation (see the last Makahiki entry for the story behind that). For now, I decided to make sure the landing page functioned, that the description was available by clicking on the "stumbling in" button, and that I documented the problems with the images I've placed here.

From here, the task is much grander. While it may not be possible to make a perfect system by the end of the project, my goal is to aim for a functionally presentable one. I understand the greater importance on it functioning structural (Especially being able to enter it, which at this interim is not possible) but I would also like it to present the ideals I have for the system visually as well. The next step is to dive deep into the code, hoping to find all the necessary segments to modify the code not just to function for an admin, but to change game structure and management to be appeal to the outline I had set forth before.

You can check out the landing page by going here: http://bouken-prealpha.herokuapp.com/
And keep that in mind as I will probably be implementing my updates to this app as time goes on.

For now, the journey is at a rest, and this is the progress I have made. But it won't be long before the journey will continue.