[Kde-games-devel] KDE games strategy

[Inge Wallin]

Hi,

Now that I am the new maintainer of KReversi (again), I thought it would be a 
good time to discuss the strategy behind the games.  I know that this has 
changed slightly over time, but as far as I understand, these are the general 
ideas behind the module:

1. The KDE Games are more of little past times than serious games.

For example, KReversi is not the application to go to if you want a serious 
game of reversi, neither is KFourInLine or Bovo.  Knight may be the exception 
here, but I'm not sure. But none of the games are very big or complex or take 
very long.

2. Graphics is an important part of the game play experience.

During the last few years, much energy have been put into making the games 
look good and feel good.  Personally, I can feel that this has been done to 
the point of missing other aspects of the games but of course what the 
developers are interested in gets done so no real complaints here.

3. Network play is not very important.

Ok, this may not be true, but if we check which of the KDE games are actually 
network aware, we find very few. In particular, none of the games can connect 
to any of the servers that do exist out in the world.

Is the above correct?

If so, I think we have a nice platform for discussing where we want to go from 
here.  I am aware that not all dreams may become reality, but I think that if 
we want to reinvigorate the KDE Games we need to have a clear vision. 

I do have a few ideas to kick off the discussion:

* Improve the AI's for the games that have one.
This is where my own programming strength lies, and I think I can at least 
spice up KReversi, Bovo and KFourInLine. I would love to create games like 
Lines of Action and Amazons and it shouldn't be too difficult given that I 
already have AI's lying around for them, and creating new boards should be 
simple.  But should I?

* Improve network awareness
This looks like a no-brainer, but yet it hasn't happened for a long time.  Is 
it perhaps outside of the (unwritten) KDE Games strategy?

I think it would be good if we could have a thread here for a few days and 
then meet up at the Desktop Summit for a BoF.  I also think it would be very 
good if we could document the general strategy behind the KDE Games module.