Game Development Quickstart

This is a quickstart/walkthrough for new developers who may be unfamiliar with OLPC, the XO,

Why make a game for the XO?

• Audience. The XO is a platform that will be distributed to tens of thousands of kids all over the world, free of charge. In many cases, these will be the first computer games these kids have ever seen. You can't beat that kind of distribution.
• Transparency. Since all OLPC games are open-source, you won't just be making games for kids to play - you'll be making something they can use to learn how to program and make games themselves.
• Collaboration. The XO platform comes with collaborative features that make innovative multiplayer ideas possible.
• Technology. While the XO CPU isn't that powerful, it does have some hardware that does not come standard with other laptops, like the camera, mesh networking, and the tablet mode game-controller.
• First mover advantage. There aren't that many games for the XO yet, so making a good game in this stage will generate a lot of publicity and attention. You can help out and make an exciting new game platform grow!
• Add your own reasons here!

How to start a game

• join the games mailing list and introduce yourself
• check that your design can meet Hardware_specification hardware requirements.
• choose an open source license to release under - we recommend the GPL or Creative Commons.
• find a place to host your development code - sourceforge and google hosting are two options.
• code!
• when you have a working prototype, email the games list and ask for testers (and ask local kids you know to try the game to see what they think).
• apply for hosting? how to get project into the olpc library?

Things to think about while designing

Hardware considerations

kentquirk: The XO is definitely limited in processing power -- people should imagine the performance of a machine that was current sometime in the late 90s or so -- a few hundred mhz, no 3d graphics.

Find out more at Hardware_specification.