[OLPC-Games] Games Digest, Vol 5, Issue 6

[Lincoln Quirk]

Hi Jennie,

On Thu, Jun 14, 2007 at 09:24:04PM +0100, Jennie Stenhouse wrote:
> I was wondering if some one can point me in the direction of info on
> the camera, mic and tilt ,ideas about equivelent out put from these
> devices or emulation ideas would be handy too!

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Game_development_HOWTO is the page to watch
(and pages linked from it like Pygame). Pygame will be the primary game
development API that we're supporting on the laptop.

Hardware support is still in fairly early stages, but I and some other
people are actively improving it over the next few weeks. There's no
tilt sensor, but there is a little bit of specialized hardware that
could be used for games: the camera and microphone (as you know),
wireless mesh networking, and game controls next to the screen (d-pad
and four action buttons).

Emulation: read http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Emulating_the_XO for
information.

> I am really excited about the project and am intreasted in making
> games accessible to all even those kids ( and come on other members of
> communitys with the laptops ) who can't preform fine motor movements
> required for a keyboard and touch pad.

Good point. I'm not familiar with the laptop's accessibility standards,
but whatever exists, we should support with Pygame. Anyway, if you're
interested right now in doing game app development, you can definitely
start your work in Pygame, and it will run without too much hassle on
the XO.

> As an aisde I would be happy to help out with art assets if people are
> after them.

You should subscribe (or remain subscribed) to this list; people may be
looking for help and this is a place they would probably look. If IRC is
your thing, you could hang out on #olpc-content on freenode; that
channel tends to have game-related activity too.

Lincoln Quirk