[Kde-games-devel] KSnake development for KDE 4.

[Matthew Woehlke]

Luka Marinko wrote:
> I also noticed that KSnake isn't getting much
> attention. Since i quite like this kind of games (all the way back from DOS
> nibbles) I decided to do something about it.

Well, I don't play KSnake, so I decided to look before replying... one 
thing that could use some love is the controls, comma, utter lack of 
responsiveness (at least on my computer)! Anyone else have this problem?

> What I am planing on doing: 
> - first I intend to port graphic to the svg.

Good, good. :-)

> - Another problem is size of game area. By default size window is about 1/4
> of the size of 17 inch monitor (1280x1024). even with svg graphic if you
> maximize the window game will look odd, since everything will be too big.
> So we need bigger levels, but if we just increase current level size, you
> get more room to move in, and game gets easier as a result. So we also need
> new levels :)

In Nibbles (the Microsoft QuickBASIC version), levels were IIRC 78x~44 
(not counting the outer border which of course is solid, although 
perhaps you would like to add wrapping ala Pacman? :-)). I think that's 
a reasonable size. I don't think I would want to go bigger than that; 
big (and DETAILED! :-)) graphics are OK IMO.

> Current levels (and so is title screen and Level loading graphic) are stored
> as 1 bit per pixel bitmap, stored in header files which get linked in at
> compile time. I intend to change this to something that gets read at
> runtime. 
> I had some discussion about this on #kdegames and one suggestion by
> marktaff, is to store levels in svg (with help of clones and id naming
> scheme), the other one is to store levels similar to how katomic stores
> them. I welcome other suggestions.

I don't know how KAtomic stores them, but how would you store what are 
effectively 1bpp raster images in SVG (that would make this purposeful)? 
Or would this allow custom level graphics?

Nibbles-QB used for() loops, if you want to be REALY retro you could 
store levels via scripts that create the level... but I think nostalgia 
would be the /only/ advantage to that. ;-)

> - About gameplay,  I find enemy snakes and balls annoying so I would change
> the default game style to be without them. I was thinking of providing a
> few pre-configured game styles(This is just a few of top of my head,
> suggestions welcome ):

I would like to multi player support I think. At least for a second 
player. It would be REALLY cool if you could support some kind of 
network play, but at least two people at one keyboard would be nice.

-- 
Mathew
(sorry, .sig file is on the other computer)