[Kde-games-devel] Kalzium Similations/Games and your new code

[Ian Wadham]

Carsten wrote on Wednesday, 20 Sept:
> Ok, the questions I have are: 
> - Is the new KBoard-class (I think that is the name) ready
> enough to be used?
> 
Mauricio has done a great job of converting KGoldrunner to
the new class and I (current author) have been testing it.  It goes
like a rocket and is very light on the CPU.  Even with 26 moving
sprites and 700+ background pixmaps it takes around 1% of a
2.4GHz Pentium 4 CPU and would work OK (IMO) on an early
Pentium or 486, if there are any still around ;-)

I am up to about level 60 of my game and no hiccups in
performance or screen appearance anywhere (each level has a
different layout, composed of a basic set of 10 pixmaps).  My
only problem is that the change to the next level when you win
is just *too* fast.  I shall have to put in a small delay at that point :-)

Congratulations to Mauricio ... and to Maurizio Monge, the author
of the new class.  Terrific job, and thanks very much guys!

> - Would somebody help me porting my code to the new
> Qt4/KDE4-stuff?
>
I am a great fan of Kalzium and have been intending to use it in
some weekly science talks I give to a local adult education group
(in Melbourne, Australia).  Unfortunately I have never got as far
as Mendeleyev and the Periodic Table in my introductory course,
but maybe next year I can present some more advanced material.

So I would be very happy to help you in any way I can, but not until
December at the earliest, as I have other commitments until then.

> This would introduce a dependency on kdegames for Kalzium,
> but with CMake that doesn't matter. I guess I will make those sims
> standalone anyway when they are done.
>
Where the new class should go is a moot point.  I believe it, or
something like it, should go in Qt 4, to replace what has been
lost when QCanvas was dropped, but I think it would be difficult
to sell *that* idea ... eh, Mauricio?

KDE games is quite a good place, but then IMHO it is high time
the KDE games library became a fully incorporated member of
the KDE libs set!

For the moment, the new class is "cloned" into KGoldrunner, but
that's not very satisfactory long-term, except that it *is* portable
to other platforms that way.

All the best, Ian W.