Rachinations

This is a port of Dr. J. Dormans' Machinations framework into Ruby.

It provides a Ruby-based DSL to enable game designers to create and also test tentative game designs and/or prototypes.

Contents

• Classes to model the domain
• Tests
• A simple DSL (Domain-specific language) whose objective is to enable anyone to write Machinations diagrams, run them, obtain metrics, compose subdiagrams and so on.

Installation Guide

Rachinations is written in Ruby so you need to have Ruby installed on your system. You only need 5 minutes to get it to work:

Linux

The best way to install Ruby on a Linux-based machine is probably RVM. Instructions on how to install RVM on Linux here

Once Ruby is installed, you just need to install the rachinations gem. The process is straightforward:

  $ gem install rachinations

Windows

• Installation

On Windows, the best way to get up and running with Ruby is probably using the RubyInstaller for Windows

Please note that Rachinations requires at least Ruby version 2.1 to work.

If you have never used Ruby before, I recommend you tick the following two boxes, as per the following image:

• Veryfing that the installation worked

Once Ruby is installed, open a command prompt and type ruby -v just to see if everything worked.

You should see something like this (details may vary slightly)

  > ruby -v
  ruby 2.1.5p273 (2014-11-13 revision 48405) [x64-mingw32]

• Configuring rubygems and installing the library

Once that's done, we'll configure gem (Ruby's package manager) to address a well known problem that has to do with certificates on Windows. More info here and here.

On the command prompt, do this:

  > gem sources -r https://rubygems.org

and

  > gem sources -a http://rubygems.org
  https://rubygems.org is recommended for security

  Do you want to add this insecure source? [yn] y
  http://rubygems.org added to sources

After you've done the last step (which adds a new source for gems to be fetched from), then you can install the gem proper:

  > gem install rachinations

(you might see a few error messages, but don't worry)

Usage

All you need to do is write your diagram in a file whose name ends in .rb and run it using the ruby command.

Examples

• Simplest possible example

 require 'rachinations'

 # this is a simple diagram with a single pool with
 # 5 resources
 d=diagram 'simplest_diagram' do
     pool initial_value: 5
 end

 # and execute it for 10 rounds
 d.run 10

Save this code into a file (say, static_diagram.rb) and run it like this:

 $ ruby static_diagram.rb

• Example 1

 require 'rachinations'

 diagram 'example_1' do
     source 's1', :automatic
     pool 'p1'
     pool 'p2', :automatic
     edge from: 's1', to: 'p1'
     edge from: 'p1', to: 'p2'
 end

• Example 2

 require 'rachinations'

 diagram 'example_2' do
     source 's1'
     pool 'p1'
     converter 'c1', :automatic
     pool 'p2'
     pool 'p3'
     edge from: 's1', to: 'p1'
     edge from: 'p1', to: 'c1'
     edge from: 'c1', to: 'p2'
     edge from: 'c1', to: 'p3'
 end

• Example 3

 require 'rachinations'

 diagram 'example_3' do
     source 's1'
     gate 'g1', :probabilistic
     pool 'p1'
     pool 'p2'
     pool 'p3'
     sink 's2', :automatic, condition: expr{ p2.resource_count > 30 }
     edge from: 's1', to: 'g1'
     edge from: 'g1', to: 'p1'
     edge 2, from: 'g1', to: 'p2'
     edge from: 'g1', to: 'p3'
     edge from: 'p3', to: 's2'
 end

• Example 4

 require 'rachinations'

 diagram 'example_4' do
     source 's1'
     pool 'p1', triggers: 's2'
     source 's2', :passive
     pool 'p2'
     edge from: 's1', to: 'p1'
     edge from: 's2', to: 'p2'
 end

• Example 4, alternative version

This amounts to the same diagram as the one defined in Example 4, but uses a different mechanism for defining triggers between nodes.

 require 'rachinations'

 diagram 'example_4_alternative' do
     source 's1'
     pool 'p1'
     source 's2', :passive, triggered_by: 'p1'
     pool 'p2'
     edge from: 's1', to: 'p1'
     edge from: 's2', to: 'p2'
 end

Full DSL specification

TODO