[Kde-games-devel] State of games

[Mauricio Piacentini]

> However fortunately most games are in a working and productive state (except 
> for maybe a KDE4 port) and thus can live without much efforts, too.

I agree with this in principle, and some games already have an active 
user base. However, I would like to add that some of them are starting 
to look very dated imo. I am not talking about games that are supposed 
to look retro, like kgoldrunner, of course. But KDE has improved a lot 
specially in the graphics department, and this makes the difference more 
obvious when a game has not been updated in the last few years. In some 
cases the icons are really good, but the game pieces and backgrounds 
could be improved to use vector art, or transparency, or use shadows, 
for example.

I have introduced many people to KDE, including family members. And most 
of them have mentioned that some of the games look unpolished, some in 
art, others in gameplay, others in general usability. I understand that 
there are technical and practical limitations to what we can do, but the 
longer development cycle for KDE4 makes it possible (imo) to improve on 
this, a great opportunity for a small redesign. And maybe a good 
opportunity to reevaluate all games in a sistematic way as well. If some 
are starting to show their age, maybe they can be redesigned, or even 
removed?

Dmitry has started this process in the quality check page already, and 
in his message. Maybe we can use this list or a wiki to discuss the 
state of each game with the current maintainer or author, and find ways 
to involve graphic artists or more programmers in this effort to improve 
the overall quality of the package. In my opinion most games could be 
updated relatively easy with refreshed graphics, and this alone would be 
an amazing difference for users migrating from KDE3 to KDE4 when it is 
ready. You know, sometimes the first impression counts a lot, and pretty 
graphics help :)

Regards,
Mauricio Piacentini
Tabuleiro