The Groovy way

The Groovy language is awesome! It reached in the first days of this year version 1.0, and also two books about it has been already published (three, counting also the Grails manual, being Grails a web-framework based on groovy), and it's now the second _standard_ language for the JVM. The first is java itself, and no other standard language actually exists. This new language is backed by famous companies such as Oracle, IBM and others.
About Strategic, I can tell that at the moment I'm experimenting with the features of groovy, trying to find a reasonable way to store rules in a "configurable" way. What I mean is that, being tis project about a "configurable strategic game engine", the the games rules had to be stored somewhere else than in the engine itself. This means that I must find a practical, effective and easy to handle way to store rules inside a package, and load it when installing a game-pack inside Strategic.
In this very moment a big flag with written "take a look at how GRAILS is made" passed through my brain... I'll think about it.

Maybe, one day...

... I'll succeed getting this project finished! Another change in specifications...
Now, I'm learning the Groovy scripting language, JCP standard for the JVM. It's a _very_ promising language, and it's silently gaining momentum. This, plus the upcoming scripting support in Java 1.6, means that I'll probably choose groovy as the default scripting language for the engine, but that other scripting languages will be supported too.
I'm also considering that the speculations about java3d and other java game programming libraries are obsolete, at this time. I'm constantly thinking about the design of the engine, but I'm still developing my analysis skills, so it's taking long.
Updating now the documentation.
See ya!

Wikified!

I've started a wiki at www.wikia.com, putting online some documentation I've written. More to come.

Status

This may seem a dead project, but it is not. It has just a very slow planning phase.
Anyway, this project is always in my thoughts, and sometimes I work on it's design.
I'll upload ASAP some stuff about this.
Actually I'm alone on this project, ideas are ambitious, and sometimes the goal seems too far. But I'm convinced that if I'll be able to make the first step, gears will begin to turn.
Let's hope...

About Java3d

I'm going to try out Java3D for the management of geometry. Actually the 3d rendering is absolutely not a requirement, but the library provide a lot of geometry related classes, such as point2d, point3d, shapes and math, as well as 2d graphics facilities.

I've found a good javascript library for game programming. It's called simply Gamelib javascript 2.10. It has functions for cache management, frame, layers, widgets, menu, mouse events and sound.

http://www.sean.co.uk/a/webdesign/javascript_gamelib/javascript_gamelib.shtm

Some changes, again...

Some other changes.
First, I've cancelled the prototype. Things are changed, and now it's obsolete.

Second, I've changed my mind about the architecture of the application. I'm thinking to build the system using J2EE, and a webapplication to interface the system and the users. So, the main interface will be a webpage, and not a character interface. Anyway, the idea it's to implement a shell interface as a "module" of the webapp, so that users could connect using ssh and interact with the system.

that's all...