Game development meetings: Difference between revisions
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# Developers program: updated thoughts from Mark & Ben |
# Developers program: updated thoughts from Mark & Ben |
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#: clarify who wants what, prepare for brutality. |
#: clarify who wants what, prepare for brutality. |
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#: Jonathan Blocksom is interested in figuring out how to get useful 3D running on the platform. Could be OpenGL ES, or some other software renderer. He's going to edit the wiki with info as he does his research. |
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# Mailinglist outreach: pygame, childsplay --> updates from andrew/oro |
# Mailinglist outreach: pygame, childsplay --> updates from andrew/oro |
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#: IGDA - Jason Della Rocca, casual games list. |
#: IGDA - Jason Della Rocca, casual games list. |
Revision as of 18:43, 15 April 2007
Please see Game Development Section for basic information.
Game Development Meetings & Notes
We are working toward a series of future meetings between now and July focused on producing parts of the game SDK and actual games for the laptops:
- Conference call about XO Game Jam for spring in Boston : This will be a call with Boston IGDA and Boston Game Jam organizers to create a XO specific Game Jam for early June. This both serves as a goal to meet some of the development needs by then and to articulate games we'd like to see built as rapid prototypes.
- Localization [across software & content fields] : We are looking to host a small call to iron out specifics about how localization needs will be articulated for games that will run on the XO. It should be straightforward but we're double-checking things prior to finalizing a document on this.
- In-person, Cambridge, early April (10?), to set final development goals and 9-mo calendar : This will be a larger in-person meeting over a weekend in Cambridge to focus on final nuts and bolts issues related to producing initial workable game SDK (especially the pygame stack and initial libraries/engines/tools) for development. A formal agenda for these two-days is under construction.
- XO Game Developers Summit, July : This will be a first XO developers summit where there will be a release of tools , documentation, and sessions on developing for the XO. A fully articulated developer program, future schedule, and hosting of games built. E3 and GLS are 11-13 so we will not be meeting then. Perhaps the following weekend (21st?)
April 15
We are having a conference call April 15 at 1400 EDT.
We will have a simultaneous IRC chat on irc.freenode.net, in #olpc-content.
Attendance
Agenda
- Game Jam update: we're on for June @ Olin
- We have awards to give out: passes to Austin and GDC 2008, for starters
- Sponsorship: we need to raise ~$8k
- Check on the wiki page GameJam and give us feedback, please.
- Sister Jams (California, S. America)
- Who's interested? We need to give them a template, place to share the content
- Can we set up an open Subversion repository?
- Developers program: updated thoughts from Mark & Ben
- clarify who wants what, prepare for brutality.
- Jonathan Blocksom is interested in figuring out how to get useful 3D running on the platform. Could be OpenGL ES, or some other software renderer. He's going to edit the wiki with info as he does his research.
- Mailinglist outreach: pygame, childsplay --> updates from andrew/oro
- IGDA - Jason Della Rocca, casual games list.
- prepare letter to send out about 1) the Jam, 2) the dev program, 3) game-platform thoughts
- App and gaming update:
- Pygame games that run quickly and not so
- Gnash benchmarks and testing; Binary game update
- Java games and mobile-java
- Kye and upcoming activities
- blank white cards]
- Go, Chess, and Cardgames
April 1 -- no joke!
We had a conference call April 1 at 3:00 PM EDT (postponed from 2:00 after a glitch).
We held a simultaneous IRC chat on irc.freenode.net, #olpc-gamedev.
- Olin schduling: Mel, Mon
- Mailinglist outreach: pygame, childsplay --> andrew
- Developers program: Mark&Ben
- igda - Jason Della Rocca, casual games list.
- clarify who wants what, prepare for brutality.
Attendance
- Noah Kantrowitz (coderanger)
- Charles Murphy
- Dan Roy
- Mark DeLoura
- Mel Chua
- Orospakr
- SJ
- Kent Quirk
- Kim Quirk
- Peter Smith
- Ben Sawyer
- Josh Seaver (Yoshi)
- Joe Lee
Agenda
- Technology
SDL -- status of SDL build; search for volunteers. It is both urgent and important to get this running ASAP, so we can't really wait for some SoC project to do it.- PyGame --
dependent on SDL but alsoimportant to get started ASAP - Support for OLPC-specific hardware (camera, mesh networking, etc)
- Do we feel comfortable telling people to build on PyGame starting now?
- JavaScript game status
- Flash game status
- Game Development
- Game Jam 1 -- (probably) at Olin campus, sometime in the spring (June 8-10?)
- Game Jam 2 -- timing? Location?
- Translation / localization system
- Documentation system
- Publishing plan -- pre-ship, post-ship
- Formalize developer program?
- Quality, quality, quality -- solid builds and repeatable results
- how to keep quality standards while encouraging newbie developers to contribute/learn?
- Display and artwork
- How to create material for this mode
- Describe colorspace and range...
- Articulate specific needs for paint program. Tux? Pixem? Blender? Anim?
- APIs for calibration (colorspace, analog in...)
- Also: design games thatfunction withlow reresh rate, monochrome mode. Serve as inspiration for tech tests, &c.
notes
- documentation -- something to go play with...not necc written docs. - quasi-official apis.
SDL and Pygame
SDL -- volunteers. kent + andrew. cant wait for SoC- PyGame --
dependent on SDL but alsoimportant to get started ASAP - Support for OLPC-specific hardware (camera, mesh networking, etc)
- Do we feel comfortable telling people to build on PyGame starting now?
- Yes. Contact pygame, childsplay mailing lists
JavaScript game status
- Test suite, good examples. Document how to tweak.
- Experts: john in #jquery
Flash game status
- Test suite, good examples. Document
- Experts: check with gnash-list, rob
Game conferences
- preJam -- May ??
- Game Jam 1 -- June 8-10
- Game Jam 2 -- mid-July? Location? onsite, online. MIT + CMU + Brasiliero?
Graphics
- Have SVG as a well-supported option
- Other blittable formats
- fast action games: display size? what is the bottleneck?
- Hardware image scaling. graphics/display gurus: adam jackson, jordan crouse [cosmicpenguin, ajax]
Translation / localization system
- python - docstrings, code are english. How towork on this?--> localization at laptop
- Documentation system - how to write; how to localize / expose strings
- Publishing plan -- pre-ship, post-ship
- Formalize developer program?
Quality
- how to keep quality standards while encouraging newbie developers to contribute/learn?
- Define a quality gauntlet. 1) review for running/bugs 2) general fun and approval 3) country / locale
- Use element of content stamping for this ...
Display and artwork
- How to create material for this mode
- Describe colorspace and range...
- Articulate specific needs for paint program. Tux? Pixem? Blender? Anim?
APIs
- Design test frames for var APIs
March 18
Our March 18 conference call focused on the following questions and subsequent notes:
[This was revised to show more the decisions coming out of meeting]
- What big picture decisions can we make about each of the above needs?
How can we get them properly developed in unison?
- Weekly meetings. We are working on weekly meetings both online and via conference all - looking at weekend (Sundays?) We don't yet have a set schedule.
- What do developers really need and by when?
Goal: A reasonable first pass SDK, future development doc, and developer program by July '07 Documentation: Docs should have guidelines for 2D, 3D graphics, networking, working w/sugar, size/footprint, common libraries, etc. Have started Game Developer Docs to begin this process.
- Deadlines: April: All core plans for year in place, June: Developer Jam @ Olin College, July: OLPC Game Developer Summit
- What process and structure needs to drive the next 12 weeks forward? (deadlines, updates) <-- this still needs work.
- Where should development be centered and how do we create a means for making tough decisions?
- Who houses this work? Who makes sure builds are working and certified?
- Who does documentation?
- Kent: SDL, Ben & Peter: Khronos,
- Ben: high-level games, general notes
- Ian, Rob, Gnash-doc-writer: Gnash
- CMU ETC: Housing integrated platform, helping with key holes as identified?
- <Java... Stefano?> What will be the Java VM and when will it be finalized?
- What are the preferred file-formats? Can we make a common resource file format? common XML format for translation?
- Kent: SDL, Ben & Peter: Khronos,
- How do we link this work into the core XO OS design group / get involved with that development?
- Docs on how to take part.
- What should a developer program look like?
- Specifically what should we be able to tell developers now, in a few months, in the future, and what do we want them to make, to build?
- Ben? get Jason dlr to talk about XOs; accept pro bono liaison offers. Have a site-section to sign up... laptop.org?
- Places to gather to show off; SF/CMU/CAM?
Timelines
First 2 weeks in April
- Meet in person; Cam / CMU (both?)
- Turn out a document to show the world what we want / expect
- Set 9-month calendar. Compare boston gamejam; indy gamejam for the XO in May?
- Get every game co in Bos/NY to come out.
- 1 artist & sound guy for every 15 devs
- Figure out how this would work - separate conf call, with Darius/DanR [startup]
- Olin --> good for an offsite
- MIT --> available; harder to reserve
May-June sprints
- prep for a v1.0 in July -- have sprints in Cambridge? school's out. cf. CMU's 2-wk sprints all fall.
- articulate 9-month cal including Austin, for full-game devs.
July XO dev conference
- Something to prepare for / develop for
- Set up piggybacking on fall events.
attendance
- Kent Quirk
- Ben Sawyer
- Mel Chua
- Kal
- Peter Smith
- Mark Prensky
- Chris Murphy (online)
- Jeff Keller
- j, dustin, more.
specific platforms
C/++
Gnash and Flash
Java
[Other] Low-level APIs
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Game platforms
3D and animation platforms
Audio
Inputs
Network
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New platforms components
Define requirements: physics, tiles, animations, sound, events... glass legos Emulation
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High level languages
visual programming
story engines
arcade and spatial
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Notes
- Cameras : Ben Sawyer checking with Jamil. Kent Q. put camera on SoC call.
- Shadow Garden, from GDC '03, SIGGRAPH '06 : cameras --> projection --> distance detection
- David Chait - x games dev; gl es
- Note from the Khronos group : open source tools 'facing group' for marketing. Send memos to khronos.org...
- Ben S and Peter -- update on Khronos support next week
next steps
- schedule another meeting to go over specifics, with devs from related projects.
- First week of April? Can Carnegie-Mellon host?
Writing a spec of what we need for SDL, andother low-level implementations: Kent
PyGame implementation spec here: PyGame ImplementationSDL implementation spec here: SDL Implementation- Writing about network and mesh offerings (P2P size, limiting factors): ??
- Note what server apis might be interesting/useful here [available within some network distance, reliability, ...]: <>
- 3D update : Ben S & Peter
- Server spec (beyond networking): <>
- Have Ian work on Flash games this week.
- Talk to Jamil now about Austin & the next GDC