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List:       kde-games-devel
Subject:    Re: [Kde-games-devel] Fwd: continuity between games
From:       "Aaron J. Seigo" <aseigo () mountlinux ! com>
Date:       2001-04-04 23:05:03
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Hi..

> As (hopefully) KDE games are getting more complex and diverse it would be
> very difficult to handle this. I would agree that the keyboard shortcuts
> could be changed for the already existant ones (if someone with CVS access
> volunteers), but there is clearly a difference between e.g. KOffice (which
> must provide a consistent user UI) and usually games, which are free to
> follow their own rules. I would even appreciate more KDE games which don't
> look like KDE/Qt on every board and menu.

i agree to a point.. control/input to the game is very game specific. 
however, it would be nice to be able to know that on board/card/turn based 
games, F2 (or Ctrl-N, whatever =) always starts a new game... that is just 
one example of what i ran into trying out the various games.

i guess what i am saying is that the actions common across programs in 
kdegames should remain constant. where there are game-specifics involved 
(such as movement controls), obviously there  should be complete freedom.

> There is now another major difference: There are lots of cool game/graphics
> libs, but an internal KDE game cannot depend on a lib outside of its CVS
> tree, except standard ones. On the other side most games don't link against
> kdelibs because games are desktop-independent, at least fullscreen games,
> but also other ones. Think of Qt games, for example. Maybe a rhetorical
> question: "How much KDE do games need?" - There may be different opinions
> here.

i see a distinction between KDE Games and external games, though. kde games 
are probably going to remain fairly simple/straightforward endevours that 
provide amusements on the desktop (think MS Hearts, or Solitaire). more 
complex games will probably not fit into the desktop metaphore as you point 
out, and are therefore probably  outside of the scope of KDE itself. there 
is a difference between KJezz and a flight sim =)

i enjoyed watching the conversation on this list earlier on about creating a 
standard User, Network, Data, etc... set of classes that these simpler games 
could use... it would speed development, create a more uniform interface, 
etc...

things i would _love_ to see made possible via a well thought outt 
game lib standard for simpler amusements include:

  - migration of qt based games such as freelords over to the kde game libs 
simply because its easier on the developer of the game and so that they can 
be given a more consistent interface (when compared with the other desktop 
amusements)

  - the creation of simple games aimed at children. i have a young son (1 
year old in 10 days! =)  and he loves the computer already, to my chagrin 
(esp. the mouse). we have Reader Rabbit type programs (for windows) that he 
enjoys, but under linux virtually all the other games for <5 yrs old (which 
aren't that many really, a dozen or so) are for Gtk or Gnome.  (check out 
linuxforkids.org to see the things available). where are the K* kids games? i 
think a standardized game lib set for kde would open up the possibility for 
the easy and quick creation of coherent games for the younger audience. this 
in turn would make KDE that much more attractive to those with younger people 
in the house.

to see something like this actually in action, which requires gnome libs 
(which i don't even have installed =):

	http://gcompris.sourceforge.net/about.html

so i'm not talking about the flight sims, first person shooters, myst/riven, 
etc.... but the simpler more every day type amusements that would benefit 
greatly from some standard tools such as common shortcut keys, simple sprite 
classes based on QCanvas, etc...

wow. ok, i rambled a LOT. time to stop =)

-- 
Aaron Seigo
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