What If... is, primarily, a game consisting of a series of linear quizzes. Each quiz consists of set of tokens and a series of yes or no questions that affect each token by adding or subtracting a numerical value to them. What If... is also a coding exercise using Python, Django and MongoDB. The coding exercise consisted of building a CMS/Administration area and a presentation UI for users to play the games.
What If... is built using Django with a MongoDB backend. Thus, in order to run the application in either a local or remote environment, you'll need the following Python libraries:
If you don't have the dependencies, install them using easy_install or pip. Additionally, checkout using virtualenv to manage varying installations and versions of Python and libraries.
The application is built using MongoDB. In addition, it uses a handy MongoDB object mapper called mongoengine, as mentioned above. The traditional django model classes do not exist and instead the model classes are defined in the /whatif/games/documents.py file.
You'll need a running instance of MongoDB for the application to work. The application in this git repository is configured to connect to an instance of MongoDB on the local computer/server. Thus, you'll need to install MongoDB on your computer or the server the applicaiton will run on. There is a great tutorial on how to install and configure MongoDB for Linux on Linode's website.
If you haven't already, clone the project repository into a convenient folder on your computer or server. For example:
$ cd ~/
$ mkdir webapps
$ cd webapps
$ git clone [email protected]:mattupstate/what-if.git
Startup MongoDB if you haven't already by calling the mongod command. For example:
$ sudo /opt/monogodb/bin/mongod
You'll want to first add an initial admin user. Navigate to the project folder and execute the custom django 'adduser' command. It will ask you for the user information to add to the database. For example:
$ cd ~/webapps/what-if/whatif
$ python manage.py adduser
Username: matt
Email: [email protected]
Password:
First name: Matt
Last name: Wright
User "Matt Wright" successfully added
Start the application by navigating to the project folder and running the django test server. For example:
cd ~/webapps/what-if/whatif
python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000
Now you should be good to go. If you're running the application on your local machine navigate to http://127.0.0.1:8000. You'll want to head into the admin area and add some games, tokens and questions. Now get to it!