[Kde-games-devel] Questions about including a new game

[Ian Wadham]

Hello Jakob,

On 21/02/2012, at 9:12 AM, Jakob Gruber wrote:
> I've been working on a nonogram puzzle game (think Nintendo Picross,
> Paint By Numbers) based on Qt / QGraphicsScene. The objective of the
> game is to mark all boxes correctly by following the hints given by
> numbers at the side of the field.

@Other list members: there is quite a good article on this type of puzzle
at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram including an animated demo.

> 
> It's still a work in progress - for example, it'd be nice to have a set
> of predefined levels that actually result in a nice pictogram when fully
> solved. The graphics could use an overhaul (I'm no artist :). Color
> nonograms could be supported. However, the current state is very playable.
> 
> A screenshot is available at [1] and the code itself is hosted at my
> github repo [2]. For testing purposes, it should be enough to run 'make
> && build/picmi' in the project root.

@Jakob: The Wikipedia example builds a clearer second copy of the pictogram
at top left.  I think that is a nice feature.

> I'd be interested in integrating it with kde-games, but I'm not sure if
> it's suitable / up to par, nor what the correct procedure or next steps
> would be. What do you guys think?

I do not wish to be discouraging, Jakob, but we have lots of games at KDE
Games and our biggest problem is maintaining them, i.e. fixing bugs, adding
wish list features and keeping up with changes in the underlying libraries.

Sad to say, many of the original KDE Games authors and maintainers have
moved away, some for good reasons such as work and family, but most have
just tiptoed quietly away and we do not know where they went or why, leaving
just a few of us to "hold the fort".

Long story short: it is not enough to have an idea for a new KDE Game.  You
need to be prepared to stay around and look after it for a few years …  Nobody
else is going to.

That said, if we like the look of your game and your code and it meets some
standard KDE requirements, there is a process for introducing it into KDE,
starting at a place in the repository called "playground", where it can be 
developed but not released and other people can try it out.  When ready,
it can move to another place called "review" and finally into KDE Games
"trunk", from which it can be released next time there is a KDE release.

All the best,
Ian W.

> [1] http://omploader.org/vY3Vodg
> [2] https://github.com/schuay/picmi-rewrite