Game development meetings

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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

  • Sj talk 23:53, 14 April 2007 (EDT)

Agenda

  1. 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.
  1. 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?
  1. Developers program: updated thoughts from Mark & Ben
    clarify who wants what, prepare for brutality.
  2. 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
  3. 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.

  1. Olin schduling: Mel, Mon
  2. Mailinglist outreach: pygame, childsplay --> andrew
  3. Developers program: Mark&Ben
  4. 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 also important 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 also important 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?
  • 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

SDL: "It needs to start working nicely on the XO." -- orospakr

  • Work out an SDL spec : what we need and why (who would use it)
    • 1200x900 is too big for most 2D SDL games to render quickly. if we activate hardware scaling for SDL applications (Mitch says that the Geode in the XO can only handle hardware scaling for "video", not "graphics". I'm not sure, but I think "video" simply means no access to any other 2D hardware acceleration primitives.)
    • SDL doesn't seem to play nicely with matchbox. You have to kill it and start twm.
  • Avoid hardware optimization?

C/++

  • Cross-development enviroinment for Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL, &c
  • C++ engines and frameworks people build on recommendations...

Gnash and Flash

  • Status on the system: working, somewhat; no games testing; sloth issues in browser
  • Get standalone Gnash working, test on specific games. Q: A Gnash-activity or a separate one per game?
    Find out if this is possible this week

Java

  • J2ME, JREs? Harmony
  • [super]Waba
  • Footprint requirements
  • Key target apps

[Other] Low-level APIs

  • Smalltalk...
  • TBD. (people to invite. check with mobile platform, emulator devs)

Game platforms

  • Pygame: Develop with GTK, et al. now.
    • Q: How much more efficient is this?
  • GCompris

3D and animation platforms

  • Blender variant?
  • Polygonal 3D
  • Open GL ES [subset] (or 1.1?)
    Or 1.1? Java 3D? Check w/mike ab., david, et al.
  • OpenKode

Audio

  • GStreamer
  • CSound hooks?
  • Vorbis devs? [Ben S. to inquire]
  • Microphone libraries

Inputs

  • Touchpad input (stylus v. other)
  • Probe input
  • Wireless/mesh-strength input
  • Battery level
  • Power/current input
  • Gesturing/cam API? Using existing video libraries

Network

  • Wireless/cellular
  • Standard MMO networking

New platforms components

  • tile based animation, sprite and animation tools
  • tools for loading maps and doing simple game development; perhaps built on top of greater pygame frames -- Ben S. to write?

Define requirements: physics, tiles, animations, sound, events... glass legos

Emulation

  • Display: shaders? How to differentiate b/t color and b/w? How to make a 640x480 image fill the screen properly? cf. display swizzling... et al.
    • Give directions to people with games optimized for normal displays... for pixel-counters. "The Pixel Manifesto" [compare modex & vga learning curves]
  • Speed: emulate low-cache, cpu/memory.

High level languages

  • universities: CMU, USC, MIT : would love this division
  • note that people can build things on fixed levels [C++ | pygame | Gnash], while discussing other classes of language

visual programming

  • etoys, mindrover [kq]
  • graphical adventures (SCUM &c), arcade-like games (motion/spatial oriented), story games

story engines

  • Zork engines, text et al; small and portable
  • kidpics, kidworks : illustrate drawings with words

arcade and spatial

  • click and play, et al [KQ]

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, and other low-level implementations: Kent
    PyGame implementation spec here: PyGame Implementation
    SDL 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
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