Game Jam

Attendees: please register online to note you are coming; or use that form to pay for registration if you've already sent in your other details.

What is the Game Jam?

The OLPC Game Jam is a game design and programming event designed to encourage (simultaneously) experimentation and innovation in the game industry and kick off development of open-source games for the OLPC platform (the XO). A group of game developers will get together over a three-day period to make as many innovative games as possible for the laptop, which is being distributed to children in developing countries around the world. Our goal is not just some great games and experimentation for the XO Laptop but also to bring the unique constraints and output of this project to next years GDC Experimental Gameplay Workshop. Code will be released on SourceForge under the GNU General Public License so everyone can freely experiment with the source and games.

The first Game Jam will be run at Olin College in Needham, MA from June 8-10, 2007. Information at the event can be found at http://hackronym.com/olpc/gamejam.

View the rest of the teaser comic here! New panels will be added as the event draws closer.

("Official events" are marked in bold below, but feel free to add your own - classrooms, blackboards, projectors, etc. are always available along with oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, other basic engineering equipment - hopefully we won't be using the impact tester though!Mchua 14:25, 3 June 2007 (EDT))

Game development how-to

See Game development HOWTO.

Schedule

Friday:

• 5-7pm - check-in, set-up computers, learn about developing for the XO
• 6:30pm - pygame tutorial (noah)
• 7-7:30pm - introductions, kickoff, begin jamming
  • round of introductions with the infamous barcamp cat-timer (mel)
  • quick intro to the OLPC project (sj)
• 7:30-9:30pm - dinner available

Saturday:

• 9-10am - breakfast available
• noon-2pm - lunch available
• 12:30-1:15 - midway checkin; short updates from teams on progress, and a great chance to ask for help or extra hands.
• 2pm - pygame recap / python lesson (noah)
• 6:30-8pm - dinner available
• 13:00-14:00 - intro/discussion to OLPC project (sj - move this to whenever is good for you)

Sunday:

• 9-10am - breakfast available
• noon-2pm - lunch available
• 3:30-5pm - final presentations, judging, and wrap-up
• 5:30pm - check-out

Introduce yourselves!

 == Team Name ==
 * Members & contact
 * What you're planning to do at the Jam
 * What do you need? (an artist? a writer? a teacher for feedback? music?)
 * What can you give? (pygame advice? graphics tablet loans?)

The Jordan Bros. -- Spray Play

• Brian Jordan (bjordan at wesleyan(edu)), Eric Jordan (ewjordan at gmail(com)), Greg Jordan
• What you're planning to do at the Jam
  • Make a game like those we played and loved when we were kids
• What do you need?
  • 2d sprite artist
• What can you give? (pygame advice? graphics tablet loans?)
  • Music / sound effects recording
  • Physics help - contact Eric (email above)

Crossfire game: shooting ballbearing objects, trying to get them in your oppoent's goal. Making some progress; trying to figure out how many particles you can get running/sinmlated all at the same time. Not all implemented yet, but getting there.

Team Kuku

• Julius Lucks (lucks at fas(harvard(edu))), Adrian DelMaestro (agdelma at (physics(harvard(edu)))), Sera Young (sly3 at cornell(edu))
• What you're planning to do at the Jam

  We are making a Number Munchers clone called Kuku Anakula for the XO

• What do you need? (an artist? a writer? a teacher for feedback? music?)

  Our main objective for the jam is to figure out how to set up the game so that we can develop on our own machines, and have it run right away on the XO (for example, how to handle the XO resolution, etc.)

  We are also making a quiz engine that can take teacher quiz content and use it for questions and answers for the game. Anyone interested in using something like this should contact us so we can work on it together!

• What can you give?

  Python help, some sweet Swahili words

Team Moonset

• Max Stafford, Gabriel Welch, Chris Barrett -(mstafford,gwelch,cbarrett) at moonsetstudios(com)
• What you're planning to do at the Jam

  We are going to write some quick games in Adobe Flash to see what the environment is like.

  See how far we can stretch Gnash and what it will and will not support from AS 2.0

  Create games that will consume XML documents so teachers can feed games questions and answers

• What do you need? (an artist? a writer? a teacher for feedback? music?)

  Any artwork that people want to loan us would be greatly appreciated as all three of us are programmers.

• What can you give? (pygame advice? graphics tablet loans?)

  Any assistance others may need with flash or perhaps flash interfaces if there is some way to incorporate them in Python.

Team Quirk

Team members

• Kent Quirk -- CTO of CogniToy and generally interested in the OLPC in general and pygame in particular; Lincoln Quirk (when not helping other teams)

Flowers

• Description
  • Start the game and flowers grow (2d)
  • Different flowers have different characteristics, driven by random genes
  • When flowers have grown full size, players can choose one or more to breed
  • New flowers grow from the blending of these genes, plus some random mutations
  • On the mesh, players can publish flowers or pick flowers from others and breed with their own flowers

Flowers grow based on the overall light intensity; what the camera sees... building architecture for how flowers grow. They can be crossbred, so you choose which flowers you like. We're trying to put together the architecture for a flower genetic algorithm system; and if eople want to build games around the platform, they can... we're making a sharing system that allows you to tune how the flowers grow.

Q: do some flowers like certain light intensities better? do they all grow better in light?

A: the light is more of a toy; it won't afect gameplay that much, but you can see them bloom when you're outside to see how it reacts to different conditions

Minuteman Team

• Francis Gassert(fgassert at gmail dot com), Morgan Quirk(mquirk at gmail dot com), Karl Gibson, Nick Domenicali
• What you're planning to do at the Jam

  Developing a physics puzzle using python/pygame

• What do you need? Some art would be nice
• What can you give? Python/Pygame teaching/advice

From Minuteman High School. Making a physics puzzle, in the style of The Incredible Machine. Goal: to get a ball into a basket, with some objects locked in place; others you create yourself, like walls... the little lines are forces. You can see impulse force and friction as lines on the screen... there's also an editor which you might be able to run; here's th elevel you just saw -- we can move stuff. Can we save it? Yes, F1 saves... it turns red when it saves. Then you can play [the level] again...

Team Noname

• David Ludwig DavidL(dludwig at pobox dot com)
• What you're planning to do at the Jam

  Reversi. More info is available on my user page.

• What do you need? (an artist? a writer? a teacher for feedback? music?)

  artwork, although programmer art may suffice for now.

• What can you give? (pygame advice? graphics tablet loans?)

  I may be able to provide advice on python and/or pygame, although my experience with it is limited.

Team Orbus Gameworks

• Jeff Ward (jeff at orbusgameworks dot com)
• Darius Kazemi (darius at orbusgameworks dot com), strictly providing moral support
• What you're planning to do at the Jam

  Programming something? MAybe something with mesh networking or possibly just something random.

  Thinking of doing a game called Sort (Game Jam Game).

• What do you need? (an artist? a writer? a teacher for feedback? music?)

  Much like everyone else, I'd like artwork.

• What can you give? (pygame advice? graphics tablet loans?)

  I can provide a sunny disposition and some programming knowledge, though I can't guarantee how useful that knowledge might be.

Team VKL

• DJ Gallagher (daniel dot j dot gallagher at gmail dot com), Olin '07 and Kelcy Adamec (kelcy dot adamec at students dot olin dot edu), Olin '09
• Project name: Poblano - a clone of Abalone
• What we're doing:

  Trying to get something off the ground using pygame, with which we have roughly zero experience. And playing with the cute widdle XO's. Basic rules established, but not all gameplay yet. board and display working...

• What we'll need:

  Not sure yet. Maybe just tons of feedback. Probably some help with pygame.

• What we have:

  Varying amounts of experience in a random assortment of languages.

  DJ is quite experienced with IronPython GUI, somewhat less so with Tcl/Tk, and so forth.

  Kelcy is familiar with A/V, etc at Olin (she has worked for Olin IT), so she can be a go-to person for problems interfacing with Olin. Her background is primarily in Java, but she has about 5 years of exposure to programing in various languages under her belt should you have general questions.

We're going to need some video help - animations to make the game more fun and exciting. It will be long and drawn out [otherwise; as a strategy game].

Team Bender

The whole idea is driving people to make stories starting with simple shapes, - squares, circles, lines, and put that on a board; then take background where people supply / create their own backgrounds. Then they could match - say someone made a boat or house, someone else could move their objects onto that board, to let younger kids practice with shpaes and colors; they could make a story the better they get. Then if flash allows us to let people control those things as avatars, you could have people on th emesh working those little color-form objects as puppets potentially in the space. We don't know if this will work in flah; we have to rewrite the drag and drop code to get objects to do it.

We're also getting other artwork - not just colorform, but also a theme or two. [NB: need sound! and Flash help from team Moonset]

XO Easel

Team Members

Angela Nguyen and William Sabota

Thanks to the following for their help: Music by Matthew Myers, Sounds by Brian Jordan, Graphics By Roberto Christen

We have a game where the hungry cats of each player is running into fish. The ultimate strategy will be having these play on each machine on the mesh with a common board. So far we have worked with Roberto to get artwork, and getting sound effects put together; and making overall logic, which we have defined. The two players have to get their cat past all the obstacles; it will be velocity sensitive, so running full-bore, the cat gets stunned and waits for a bit [when it collides with something]. There's also a mouse... when the cat gets within a certain range of the mouse, it will get distracted for a period of time. Ultimately, we'd like to have the kids be able to deal with strategy; going after the food or mouse.

The first game is Hungry Space Cat. It is a single user game. The cat is in a room where the Laws of Physics are partially ignored. But the poor cat is still hungry and wants its fish dinner.

Freelancers

Wadeb

• Wade Brainerd (wadetb at gmail dot com)
  • Working on the video integration into pygame (pygamecam, see the flowers project on coderanger.net)
  • Developing ThreeDPong

Freelancer

• Brian Grossman (brian at fablevision dot com)
• What you're planning to do at the Jam
  • Helping groups w/ education and technical consultation
• What do you need?
  • Someone who needs help :)
• What can you give?
  • Sounding Board for ideas - suggestions for turning concepts into reality

Pathfinder

• Ben Nardone (bnardone@pathfind.org). I work for a nonprofit that does reproductive health work in developing countries.
• What you're planning to do at the Jam
  • Looking to learn more about how the project works, how the XOs and development for them will work.
  • I'm also looking to find an intern to work on OLPC stuff at my company.

 :) Ben Nardone:: My Talk:: Internship:: GameJam:: Peru:: Nigeria 18:13, 8 June 2007 (EDT)

Software Developers at OLPC

Muriel

• Working on memory/word-formation and hangman/spelling games.
• Can help with packaging games as Activities

Manusheel Gupta

• Developing software applications at OLPC.
• Could help you out in development of Sugar Activities and in packaging games as Activity bundles.
• If you want to learn about XO, you are most welcome to ask me.

Planned projects and suggestions

• Kuku Anakula ("Hungry Chicken") - Zanzibari Number Munchers clone (Team Kuku)
• Poblano - Python clone of the board game Abalone (Team VKL)
• add your ideas here!
  • How about something mixing the mesh with tag-like games? Or mixing chess (hex-boards, etc) with movement rules for the 'pieces' (the other players) potentially 'evolving' into other pieces as the player remains untagged. Penalties for being tagged, could involve some 'untagging' mechanism which involves solving a puzzle or other activities that free the player... --Xavi 01:06, 3 June 2007 (EDT)
  • Programming games? Much like Robo Rally or something similar, using mesh networking, it could be pretty nifty. (JeffW)

  classification games. What kind of image is this? What kind of music? &c; and integration with system tags...

Educational toolkit for OLPC

Hi,

My name is Deepank and I am totally fascinated with the whole idea of OLPC. Although I am spending my summers with Google Summer of Code developing for openMoko, I have this idea of having an educational toolkit for OLPC which I would like to implement.

As the laptop will be used in the education of millions of children all around the world there is a need to have features that will radically change the way education is being imparted. With the intorduction of a digital medium for imparting education, the testing procedures will also undergo an overhaul. For the same reason, there is a need to have an educational toolkit for OLPC.

The objective of this project will be to create a platform over which development of educational tests will be very easy. It will use the basic PyGame API for development. After its development, even a simple rural teacher with no particular experience in programming would be able to create new exciting educational games and tests for his/her students.

This tool will enable a user to do the following:

           1. Make a quiz(Timed/Untimed)
           2. Track and report results.
           3. Enable a teacher to add MCQs, Match the following, Fill in the
                blanks and Images very easily without any programming.     

I have put up a rough and detailed draft of the idea at : http://deepankgupta.googlepages.com/easyeducationaltoolkitforolpc Please take time to go through it and give your valuable comments, suggestions and feedback over this project over deepankgupta@gmail.com. I also hope to attract developers towards this project through the GameJam event. Best Regards Deepank

Ride coordination

Post here if you need or can give a ride, or want to travel with others. Olin is in Needham, ~45 minutes from Cambridge by car, and ~1 hour by commuter rail and foot.

to/from the airport

Sj talk - could use a ride from Cambridge early on Friday

from Porter Square

Nick Hays - I'll be leaving Porter square around 4 and taking the Red Line + Commuter rail to either Needham or Wellesley. I could use a ride from the commuter rail stop to Olin. I might also try to hitch a ride with someone coming from Kendall. Email nick17 at gmail if you want to tag along (or offer a ride).

to/from Kendall Square

Friday

Coderanger -- coming from Kendall Friday afternoon, back that evening.

Mel talk - will be busing in early Friday morning, company welcome (7am #71 to #59 and walking to Olin, arrival ~9am)

Ywwg talk - driving there after work, leaving around 4:15 (I may be a little late)

Sat/Sunday

Adrian : leaving Sat at 18:00, returning Sun at 08:15 from Kendall

other

DavidL - I'll be driving in from Marlborough each day, and can provide rides to and from that area. E-mail dludwig at pobox dot com if you're interested.

staying at/near Olin

• Team VKL will be commuting from Auburndale, should people need a lift in the Newton/Wellesley area.
• Noah : leaving Saturday late; relatively local to Needham

Pictures! Yay!

• Game Jamming
• 

  Team Minuteman

• 

  Team Orbus Gameworks

• 

  Team Bender

• 

  Team4 (The Jordan Brothers)

• 

  Team VKL

• 

  Team Kuku
  note the B3 with the colored XO

Sorry if you don't like the whole right-justification thing. Feel free to change it; I don't know how...

changed... now what is the relation between #'s and names? --Xavi 22:21, 8 June 2007 (EDT)

Bundle Help

Owen Williams created a brief Open Office tutorial on creating activity bundles for olpc based on Noah's skeleton framework. (Please right-click and save-as)

(Powerpoint Version)