[gcompris-devel] Thanks for Gcompris! And some hopes and bugs

[Bruno Coudoin]

Le dimanche 28 novembre 2010 à 19:08 +0200, Sini Ruohomaa a écrit :
> I would like to send a merci beaucoup for Gcompris! Our 1-year 9-month
> toddler has found it surprisingly entertaining, and we keep finding new
> games in the package that he likes to "play" while sitting on our lap.
> (And we now get to control the time spent in front of the computer
> already at this age... ;))

Thanks in the name of the GCompris contributors.

> I'll start with the two bug reports:
> 
> - With the putting different objects into the correct shape slots
>   (assigned to Bruno), level 8 is broken: the file
>   babysomething/Paul_Gauguin_006/statue.png is apparently missing.
>   It's been like this in both Ubuntu Lucid and Maverick, lucid's version
>   is 9.0-0ubuntu7. This may be a packaging issue so I'm cc'ing the
>   original Debian maintainer and the Ubuntu maintainer list.

We are working on a new release named 9.4. I checked this and is is
fixed now.


> - I managed to totally freeze Gcompris (CPU use 100%, window switching
>   still worked) in the chess training, first task with 2 kings, rook and
>   pawn. It seemed like some kind of safety check for thinking really
>   hard was missing.

It has been fixed also.

> I figured I'd also give an overview of what we play and a few
> suggestions for new things that don't require too significant
> implementation. It would be cool if there were an overview (in help, for
> example) of games that could be tried at different (low) age groups, so
> maybe this list would help with creating that for ages 1-3y or so.

Each activity has a difficulty level. You can easily filter GCompris
activities by using the administration module or running 'gcompris -d 2'
for example to shown only difficulties 1 and 2.

> 2) Mouse games: the wiping away of boxes on top of different animal
> pictures.
> 
> Our test subject loves animals. He can't use the mouse at all yet, so
> Mom and Dad need to do the actual wiping. He gleefully mimics the
> "he-he!" of the clown every time.
> 
> Request: Even more different animal pictures! And maybe a checker to
> stop the same picture from appearing very frequently. :) (There's a lot
> of lemurs and bears; more cows, squirrels, rabbits and other "large"
> categories of mammals would balance the selection. Horses and big cats
> are the best in our household though.)

I am reluctant to add more images because we already have a lot of them
but if we get some interesting contributions, why not.

> 3) The "gear" games (category logo of tux and gears): the train with a
> letter said out loud that needs to be clicked out.
> 
> Request: Longer "trains" would be ok here too, and being able to pick
> the letter from the keyboard as well as clicking would be nice (because
> he can use the keyboard, but I have to ask him to point for me to use
> the mouse).

Good point, I just mayde a fix to allow keyboard entry in this activity:
http://git.gnome.org/browse/gcompris/commit/?h=gcomprixogoo&id=ac565361704f776a50c60d11f6fa8f5f085a70c0

> 4) The "gear" games: the picture memory (find pairs) game.
> 
> I was surprised that this was actually well-received. On level x it
> becomes a number pair-finding game, maybe in between there could be an
> introductory number-of-fruit (possibly with the number) memory game? I
> haven't checked the later levels, the memory game aspect alone isn't
> enough to keep our interest past the number cards.

It is late, I would need more time to check that.

> 5) The "gear" games: putting different items on their "shadows" (which
> the first bug report was about too).
> 
> He points, I drag. He doesn't seem to entirely understand the game, but
> gets some of them right and likes the everyday items he can figure out.
> 
> Request: More levels like the first few - with many small pictures -
> would be great. You could for example reuse some of the animals from the
> memory cards.

In the new version we have a new activity in the same spirit named
'details'. Maybe it can fill the gap.

> 6) The keyboard games: falling dice that you should count and type.
> 
> Request: This is actually quite boring. I can't get his focus on the
> dots on the dice, since the dice take the attention. Falling similar
> patterns of fruit or coins on a plain background would be better for
> this or maybe on (playing) cards even? It would fit a wider difficulty
> range then too.
> 

I agree, this activity should be rewritten. Also in the current one, you
can hit all the numbers on the keyboard very fast and win all the time.

Thanks a lot for your report, it was very helpful. I copied our mailing
list to keep other informed and maybe motivate contributions.

Regards,

-- 
Bruno Coudoin
http://gcompris.net  Free educational software for kids
http://toulibre.org  Logiciel Libre à Toulouse
http://april.org     Promouvoir et défendre le Logiciel Libre