[Kde-games-devel] Kapman

[Matthew Woehlke]

Emil Sedgh wrote:
> Hi guys
> about including in the release, i think the final list is not complete and 
> could change any moment. if kapman is playable and good enough for release, its 
> not late yet.

It's playable if the non-item-moving animation is disabled or otherwise 
fixed :-).

> about the game (i have rev 787070):
> 1)artwork is not good, walls look bad.im sure they will be changed, but atm 
> they are bad

I had retro walls that look *great* (well, for what they are), but it 
needs a tile engine for wall drawing that I haven't been able to commit 
due to the no-community freeze.

"Retro" walls:
http://img397.imageshack.us/img397/1931/kapmanfg5.png

...current progress on the "oxygen-like" theme:
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/6435/kapman1ow6.png

There are some graphic glitches of the sort KGr dealt with, because each 
element is independent and not an exact-pixel size. I think the same 
growing pains as KGr are coming, i.e. it needs a pixmap cache and needs 
the scene to be such that cells are integer-pixel sized (which means 
there will be a few padding pixels).

> 2)the game is so easy.i passed to level 13 without any problem.it looks like 
> that the speed of those ghosts-or-whatever-you-call-them increases in every 
> level, but the increasing level is not enough.

I've mentioned the "dumb" AI... the version I've been looking at 
literally chooses a random direction. Lots of room for improvement, and, 
while the best idea I have is several hours' work, there are a few 
techniques that would give a *huge* improvement in about an hour or less.

I've already thought about making the AI dependent on a difficulty 
level. The current AI could be "easy"...

(I also don't think the ghost speed should change per-level; it never 
worked that way on the cabinets...)

> 3)are you going to have some theming support? that would be awesome.

I absolutely want theming eventually. I already have ideas for at least 
five themes :-).

> 4)there shouldnt be a blue ghost i think, because it has the same color as 
> dead-ghosts (dead ghost=ghosts when you eat big pills).sometimes thats 
> confusing.

This is purely artistic, and trivial to change (if/when I ever do 
ghosts, I am going to have a blue ghost, but "prey" ghosts won't be the 
same color). I do like the current ghosts for a "retro" theme :-).

> 5)could the map get changed on every level? that would be good

Um... with tile-drawn walls, it could. As soon as that gets committed, 
I'll be porting all of the ms-pacman mazes and probably a number of 
mazes that are purely my own original designs.

> 6)when the game starts, it currently waits you to play.it would be so nice if 
> it plays a demo, like kgoldrunner.

Yes, but I don't think that's a needed feature for a first release :-).

-- 
Matthew
"The government is not trying to destroy Microsoft, it's simply seeking 
to compel Microsoft to obey the law. It's quite revealing that Mr. Gates 
equates the two." -- A government official