[Kde-games-devel] KGoldrunner

[Parker Coates]

On 7/20/07, Luciano Montanaro <mikelima at gmail.com> wrote:
> - I'd like to split hero and enemy frames out of the main svg file; many
>   themes could use the same animation graphics, which are the hardest
>   part to draw.
> - I'd like to have themes inherit from other themes.
>

Hello Luciano,

I'd like to urge you to rethink the above proposal to separate
graphics across multiple files and to implement theme inheritance. The
way I see it, it is over complicating the situation without any great
benefits.

Due to the nature of SVG files, I don't think pulling from multiple
files or inheriting sprites from other themes is going to make theme
development simpler. I whole heartedly agree that creating new
animated sprites is a huge task, but I don't think they need to be
moved to a separate file to encourage reuse simply due to the concept
of copy and paste. I assume all themes are released under a
sufficiently free license, that wholesale copying of of game elements
would be permitted.

Theme "inheritance" can happen naturally with SVG. "Hey, this default
theme is pretty cool, but it'd be cooler if it was more piratey. I'll
just make a copy of default.svg and rename it to pirates.svg. I'll
replace the background with a sand and palm tree scene. Then I'll
replace the bricks with wooden planks. Easy. But replacing all those
running men with new graphics is going to be way too much work. What
if I just added an eye patch to each of the frames. Not bad. I'll do a
beard too. Now a hat. What if I replaced one leg with a peg?" And so
on.

Another concern is performance. If static items, heros and enemies are
spit into separate SVGs, three separate KSvgRenderers will be
required. It's my understanding that loading SVGs into renderers is a
pretty expensive operation. (But maybe three smaller SVGs isn't really
that much worse than one large SVG? I don't know.)

Anyway, the above is just my opinion. Maybe there are other advantages
to your proposal that I don't see. I'm sure whatever is decided in the
end will work fine, but I guess I believe there's just a certain
elegance to single file themes.

Thanks,

Parker