[Kde-games-devel] The Future of Game Development in KDE

[Arturo Silva]

> That is indeed the goal (i have just finished writing the first bit of stuff
> about my idea for game object structures, very inspired by Unity3D's version
> of it, which already shows the potential for something of what you describe
> above). If you wanna read:
> http://gluon.tuxfamily.org/wiki/index.php?title=GameObject_Hierachy
> It's fairly code-ey, so i dunno how hot you'd be on it, but... :)

Eeeep, I think my brain just exploded. >v<

j/k, j/k, I did try to learn C++/QT4. so even if I did crash and burn
so far at least I can recognize bits here and there.  ^^

I can definitely recognize 3D game concepts in there, which is great
(something I've always wanted to dabble with). ^^
Hopefully I'll get to see some 2D stuff too, since that's more up my
ally at this time.  ^__^b

> Cool. BTW, Unity3D is pretty much state of the art when it comes to 3D
> game development imo. But I thought you were going to concentrate on
> 2D first. Isn't this (sprites, 2D elements) one of the things already
> implemented in Gluon?

haha, and I guess I'm not alone. ^____^b

Could just be that since the Wiki page is relatively new, it doesn't
have everything up there yet.  Assuming how well I can use Creator
(I'll try it later in the evening if possible), I wouldn't mind
lending a hand with documentation.  I can at least ensure that it
becomes appropriately illustrative, as text-only documentation is
boring.  ;)

> This is very true, very much so as well - and it is somewhere OpenSuse's
> Factory might be able to help us out a bit... A bit of thought and one would
> be able to set up a daily build of the source on there, so that people would
> be able to use it without having to poke about with the, to many people, quite
> scary make commands :) Especially considering the target audience you
> basically described above - not so much yourself, but the devil's advocate you
> of course ;)

Oh, I can be a dunce at times, I admit.  :P

I've heard but not used Factory,... thought perhaps it wasn't
distro-agnostic.  ;)

But having the ability to sandbox development versions of kdegames is
something I've always wanted to see.

Whether it exists or not in one form or another, I was always
interested in having Playground be an actual graphical client
(KPlayground?) which was something of a catalog for new development
versions of existing games or a repository for new or alpha-stage KDE
games.

The user could browse the catalog and install -- the client would then
perform the installation in a sandbox environment, taking care of all
that cmake and dependency stuff in the bg (albeit still visible on
demand).  The user could play, test, rank, review and comment via a
forum-like interface.  The user can contribute alternate sounds,
graphics, documentation, walthoughs, or code patches via an upload
frontend.  The user can also view the todo list, wishlist items,
roadmap and release schedule for the game, so it's not a mystery to
see whether the game is in development, dead, or teetering on the
brink of obsolescence.  And of course, SVN updates would be regularly
reported, with ability to "upgrade" the install to the latest SVN
commit with similar ease, or downgrade if the latest version breaks
something.  It can all be as simple or as complicated as the user
wants, but at the end of the day it ensures that active development
work is not tucked away in some corner of the web.

In short, I'd love for it to be a playground in the literal sense.  :D

And sorry, that's really got nothing to do with Gluon, so don't mind
the tangent.  :)


--Arturo