[Kde-games-devel] Sleeping with the enemy

[Jay Glascoe]

Hi,

I'm the guy writing that dominoes game referenced earlier 
here. (Still working on it).

I'd like to bring up a question regarding: when (if ever)
is it appropriate to start comparing a free software game
to a non-free one? And, if you do make such a comparison,
how to avoid using someone else's, possibly copyrighted,
ideas? It's not so much copyright law that concerns me,
it's intellectual theft that I want to avoid. (hopefully,
being on the right side of the latter renders the former
moot).

For my own part, in the development of my game, most of
my research was done through general, and some specific,
gaming rules books (*books*, paper books, Hoyle's Rules).
But recently, I've taken a look at some non-free
(commercial, or shareware) software to see how they did
it. (Of course, all I can see is the interface, not the
code).

I found an online ("free") game, hosted by yahoo!, and
a shareware (WinDOS of course) game. I've learned some
things about user interface, or simple game configuration
options, that make me want to smack my head: "why didn't
I think of that?" (In particular, there are many regional
differences to some simple games that can *easily* be
included to a game, with a simple config menu, without
changing the underlying code).

Of course, there's also a few things I believe could teach
to these guys (generally: there's no excuse for crappy
looking playing pieces, a little anti-aliasing goes a long
way. specifically: is clicking and dragging necessary when
a simple click, or double-click, is sufficient to show
intent?).

Anyway, I think this problem must apply to a lot of games
programmers.

-Jay

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