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

[Luka Marinko]

For some time now, I wanted to (had an itch) to help develop KDE. But since
most of my programming to date has been on server side (C, Java, PHP,
python), never found enough time to to learn GUI programming or C++. Now I
have some more time, and decided to finally do it.

So after reading a few blog's, and kde wiki's I decided that best place to
start are probably the games. 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.

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

- 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 :)

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.

- 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 ):

1.Pick up given number of apples(depends on the level) before you can move
to the next level (less time you spend doing and higher the level  - higher 
score) 

2.Pick up as many apples as possible, each time you do you grow or speed
increases, you don't advance to next level. (How long do you last :) )
(probably needs dedicated levels)

3.Survive against enemy snakes, survive some amount of time against killer
snakes (maybe balls also), you _don't_ grow (so you can't box yourself in
someplace :) ).

In general I think this is the sort of the game that shouldn't complicate
too much, it should be quick to load, and quick to play. 

-Sound: I  listen to my ogg's and mp3's :)), so I have no plans in that
regard. (thats said phonon api is nice, if there is demand for music/sound
in games)

Maintainer: KSnake currently has no maintainer. Since I am so new/fresh I
don't think I am capable of being one just jet. So what do we/I do ? Is
there someone willing to at least temporary take over ? or perhaps just
move it to playground, until it's up to speed ?

While I am sure I can learn to do everything myself, I will take any help 
I can get, weather this is in form of pointers, suggestions, graphics,
comments, 
code or tips&tricks.

PS: I am not directly subscribed to this group, I read it through gmane-news
gateway. (KNode rox's )
-- 
Luka Marinko <luka.marinko at gmail.com>