The interesting thing, Grey, is that PHP with mySQL is already perfectly set up for games. Games have 2 parts that make them a game rather than just some application, code wise at least. The graphics end, and the gameplay through input. Both are done for you already in HTML, with forms and tables.
You can set up tiles, or even individual pixels in tables and assign them values in a session var. and you can place the sprites on the upper layer. Both the BG and foreground can have animated graphics and you could use rollovers to highlight things (wouldn't do more than that, since it might effect playability if it is turned off) then you make the tiles around the character sprite a link, and when clicked it changes data that in turn changes the location of the PC.
Most actions would be issued by clicking on the graphical field, or you could use traditional forms like pull downs and such also. Maybe you have a conversation engine in the game, and you give the player his choices of what to say in a pull down.
Basically, you don't need a game framework, because each game can have a totally different way to interact with the system. Each game can have a totally diff system to use what the interaction method gives it.
That's the problem up to now, everyone instantly notices how totally modular PHP and HTML are and wants to build an engine, then they get caught up in making it as useful as possible and you wind up with a some kind of duplicate of all the other PHP engines out there. On the other hand, the people who know little about PHP and started to use it in the hopes of creating 1 game, get lost in trying to just get the darn thing to work, they might try to bodger in mySQL later... They take forever to finish, and create crap products with limited abilities.
The way to go is to use PHP EXACTLY like you would an already existing games centered code language like our beloved blitz.
The framework is already there, it's just not what we are used to. Tables, Forms, and gifs.
using just those simple constructs you can make infinitly complex turn based games. Down to pixel perfect calculations if need be. (imagine a circle based movement that is pixel perfect where you click exactly where in the circle you want your sprite to move)
The only framework needed is how to represent the tiles. Their links would be submit buttons on <form> tags, with hidden X Y values, as well as any other value you want to give it... such as, isAttack = 0 or 1, when the tile happens to be an enemy, it turns to a 1, so it calcs the attack rather than a movement, or returns that you are too far away to attack. The <form> tag is in a table cell, and the table defines the location of each part, and could even support non-standard tile configurations with colspan and rowspan. (such as half offset to make a hex grid) All of this is created by the PHP code, which does all the calculations.
The framework is so simple, its stupid.
You can set up tiles, or even individual pixels in tables and assign them values in a session var. and you can place the sprites on the upper layer. Both the BG and foreground can have animated graphics and you could use rollovers to highlight things (wouldn't do more than that, since it might effect playability if it is turned off) then you make the tiles around the character sprite a link, and when clicked it changes data that in turn changes the location of the PC.
Most actions would be issued by clicking on the graphical field, or you could use traditional forms like pull downs and such also. Maybe you have a conversation engine in the game, and you give the player his choices of what to say in a pull down.
Basically, you don't need a game framework, because each game can have a totally different way to interact with the system. Each game can have a totally diff system to use what the interaction method gives it.
That's the problem up to now, everyone instantly notices how totally modular PHP and HTML are and wants to build an engine, then they get caught up in making it as useful as possible and you wind up with a some kind of duplicate of all the other PHP engines out there. On the other hand, the people who know little about PHP and started to use it in the hopes of creating 1 game, get lost in trying to just get the darn thing to work, they might try to bodger in mySQL later... They take forever to finish, and create crap products with limited abilities.
The way to go is to use PHP EXACTLY like you would an already existing games centered code language like our beloved blitz.
The framework is already there, it's just not what we are used to. Tables, Forms, and gifs.
using just those simple constructs you can make infinitly complex turn based games. Down to pixel perfect calculations if need be. (imagine a circle based movement that is pixel perfect where you click exactly where in the circle you want your sprite to move)
The only framework needed is how to represent the tiles. Their links would be submit buttons on <form> tags, with hidden X Y values, as well as any other value you want to give it... such as, isAttack = 0 or 1, when the tile happens to be an enemy, it turns to a 1, so it calcs the attack rather than a movement, or returns that you are too far away to attack. The <form> tag is in a table cell, and the table defines the location of each part, and could even support non-standard tile configurations with colspan and rowspan. (such as half offset to make a hex grid) All of this is created by the PHP code, which does all the calculations.
The framework is so simple, its stupid.