=head1 NAME B Bramework for Bealtime Bnline Bames of Btrategy =head1 DESCRIPTION This is a Framework for programming Massive Multiplayer Browsergames (MMBG). The generell idea is to have a SQL-Database, which is accessed over DBI, some scripts to do the work at the server and some EmbPerl-Scripts to do the user interaction. The wide area of games is to different to give the scripts itself, so instead we choose to provide some modules which includes the generell function of a MMBG and you will program some scripts to do the game-specific part. Normally you need: =over 4 =item create.pl A script, which generates a world in the database. =item scheduler.pl A script which do the commands and deliver the messages. It should run as a daemon. =item check.pl A script, which checks the logical integrity of the database of your game. =item *.epl A bunch of Templates for the user-interaction. For instance a login.epl to manage the user-authentification and a map.epl to draw a graphical map. =back As a start you can look at the scripts provided by the Aymargeddon project (www.aymargeddon.de), which is based upon FROGS. You should maybe use the *.epl-templates from it, because they do much generell work and some of them will maybe included in later versions of FROGS. FROGS consists of the following parts: =over 4 =item B An generell baseclass for maps. Includes a generell baseclass for locations. =item B A special Map derived from FROGS::Map. It is a Torus consisting of Hex-Fields. =item B This provides generell checking ability for the underlying database. =item B Here the structur of the Database is defined. You should normally not use direct DBI-access to the Database. Use this module instead whenever possible. =item B You have to change this to configure your Game. See the comments in the file. =back Look in the perldoc of the parts if you want to know more. =head1 DATABASE You also need to provide a FROGS-conform database. Your game database can have more tables and fields than this, but the following tables/fields are a must have: =over 4 =item MAP Fields: LOCATION, GAME =item COMMANDS Fields: COMMAND, GAME, PLAYER =item MESSAGES Fields: GAME, MESSAGE, PLAYER, FROM =item LOCALIZE =item ROLE =item PLAYER =back Look at the database definition in Aymargeddon to get a clue. For later versions we will provide a database definition of this minimal database to simplify things. =head1 VERSION This is Version 0.1 of the FROGS. =head1 LICENSE FROGS is Free Software (GPL). =head1 AUTHOR FROGS was written by the Aymargeddon development team. Most work done by: Benni Baermann (benni AT obda DOT de) Dominikus Scherkl Jens Kurlanda Contact us at ragnaroek AT informatik DOT uni-frankfurt DOT de. =cut