[Kde-games-devel] Survey results and IRC meeting

[Dmitry Suzdalev]

On Sunday 29 October 2006 17:34, Ian Wadham wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
Hi Ian!

> I have found the survey extremely helpful and illuminating.
> We should have done this years ago.  In the open source world
> we work in such isolation - not even any customers to talk to
> ... ;-)  Thanks, Mauricio, for yet another tremendous initiative!
May I join the thanks here :). Mauricio you really did a Great Job! Thank you 
once more! :)

> Survey: Maybe we could include a feedback form with every
> game, in the KDE standard Help menu.  That way authors
> could get feedback that is specific to their game from a broad
> spectrum of players.
Have you heard of the LikeBack system that was introduced in kde-core-devel 
some time ago? It seems to look exactly like what you suggesting :).
There was a discussion to integrate it to kdelibs but there was no solution 
achieved yet, mainly because of not clear point about how to integrate this 
system with bugs.kde.org IIRC.
You may take a look at it here (or by downloading Basket from kde-apps):
LikeBack description: http://basket.kde.org/likeback.php
Basket: http://basket.kde.org/

> Old Games: I really don't like Dennis P's ideas about putting
> all games in some kind of limbo until they look better.  And
> calling it Classic or Legacy is a bit over the top IMHO.  KDE
> itself is only about 4 or 5 years old!
KDE celebrated 10 years a couple of days ago ;).

> Graphics: Everyone seems to agree that the graphics need
> improving, but I do not see much specific recommendation,
> other than going with SVG.  "Technology is the answer, but
> what is the question?", as they say.  Presumably it is just as
> easy to draw a crummy looking picture with SVG as with
> any other technology, so let's rely on artistic skill first and
> foremost.  So what is wrong with our graphics?  I cannot
> claim any expertise, but I'll try to provide some personal
> views, if only to stimulate discussion.
Let me add: 3D? OpenGL?

> Colour choice:  Some KDE games use bright contrasting
> colours for the pieces (eg. bright red and blue).  Some
> less-saturated colours might be better.  KJumpingCube,
> for example, looks quite good IMO if you choose paler
> colours.  Klickety has the right idea IMO but could benefit
> from a sharper division (maybe slightly sunken?) between
> the tiles.
Agreed. Although Klickety seems fine to me. IMHO.

> Buttons, Dialogs and Messages:  I know that all KDE Games
> have to be proper KDE applications, with drop-down menus,
> KMessageBox, KDialogBase, etc., but is this *really*
> necessary?  It tends to give our games a bureaucratic, form-
> filling look, suitable to an office or technical application.
> Hey!  We're playing games, not filling out tax returns! :-)
> There's scope here for some more jazzy looking stuff.
> Flashing message boxes, fancy fonts, nice colours, etc.
> Maybe in libkdegames ...  Even my accounting package
> shows party balloons when you balance your cheque butts.
> We ought to do better when you win a game.
Hmm, that's an interesting idea. We should discuss this.
Btw, who knows what will be possible with new QWidget stylesheets in KDE4...

> KDE Main Menu:  This might be a SuSE thing, rather than a
> KDE thing - I'm not sure.  The KDE Games are well-grouped
> into menus, such as Arcade, Board Games, etc. but some seem
> to be in the wrong category.  Also all the games seem to have
> the game name and the description the wrong way round, which
> makes it hard to scan down the menu and find the game you
> want.  Shouldn't we have "KFoo: A puzzle game with bars",
> not "A puzzle game with bars (KFoo)"?
I think that question should be addressed to kicker/kmenu developers :-).

Cheers,
Dmitry.