[OLPC-Games] Anyone interested in a Game Jam?

[Bert Freudenberg]

Well, Etoys is not a closed environment like most other "kids  
programming environments". It lets you escape to Squeak (which is a  
full Smalltalk) as soon as things get too complex. So extending is no  
problem, however, the learning curve gets rather steep after you  
leave the lush slopes of Etoys, so I wouldn't expect most younger  
kids to take that route.

Also, by cleverly exploiting what Etoys provides, one can solve some  
seemingly complex problems in simple ways, see for example:
http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/2529

On a side note of extensibility, there is a fullblown physics engine  
(ODE) available for Etoys, see
http://languagegame.org:8888/ggame/15

Many games made in Etoys do not look as polished, but that is of  
course because the painting tools in it (which you typically use to  
create graphical objects) do not let you create polished graphics  
easily. However, it's no problem to import external bitmaps and make  
the game look a lot nicer, if that's what you're after. See this game  
made in Squeak (can't find a full-size screenshot, sorry):

http://impara.de/projekt_buccaneer_engl.html

And I won't repeat the argument that graphics didn't gameplay much  
good in the last decades. Oops, I did ;)

Anyway, as I wrote before - I am not implying that Etoys lets you  
magically create better games, not at all. It is far from perfect for  
that task. Its biggest plus is that it is on the XO *now*, including  
a full-blown IDE. If the goal is to eventually let kids or grownups  
create those games on the XO rather than just play them, then I think  
more developers should give it a serious look. They'll be in for a  
rough ride, but in the end it's at least worth studying, if not using.

- Bert -

On Nov 22, 2007, at 2:19 , Roberto Fagá wrote:

> Jason
>
> What they used at Game Jam in Brazil are Python + PyGame and C/SDL
> (and one team used Flash).
> Because the short time and the lack of experience with XO from the
> teams, they made simple games, not so complex, but are intended to be.
> They had 29 hours in theory, many of them slept during this, and
> projects were playable, but they want to extend them. I think
> extending a game to be more complex can be a good choice to use C/SDL
> or PyGame instead eToys.
>
> The most simple project which we had was a Pong game, but there were a
> game like The Incredible Machine (which was or pretend to use a
> physics engine which I forgot what is now), a RPG game, another full
> of mini games, two math games very interesting and a recycling game.
> Most of them were playable, but as I said, pretend to extend (you can
> play them on <http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Game_Jam_Brazil>).
>
> From the games made, I think only Pong and Recycling game could be
> made with Etoys, the other games I don't think so it would be so easy
> to extend later.
>
> Roberto
>
> On Nov 21, 2007 7:20 PM, Jason Pratt <jason at jasonpratt.org> wrote:
>> I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from this...
>>
>> - that eToys is vastly superior to whatever was being used at Game  
>> Jam Brasil?
>> - that the Game Jam Brasil participants weren't very competent?
>> - that this particular developer is significantly more skilled than
>> the Game Jam Brasil participants?
>>
>> It's not clear what he's advocating.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 11/16/07, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
>>> Want to share this comment of a fellow Brasilian developer:
>>>
>>> "At Game Jam Brasil last weekend, none of the teams used eToys. I  
>>> was
>>> able to reproduce their games (which they took 29 hours to program)
>>> in just a few minutes in eToys. And using the machine itself rather
>>> than a separate development PC.
>>>
>>> Though to be fair, I was programming games in Basic before any of  
>>> the
>>> participants were born"
>>>
>>> - Bert -
>>>
>>> On Nov 16, 2007, at 18:28 , Samuel Klein wrote:
>>>
>>>> I should have read all my mail before asking :-)  Also, here's a  
>>>> set
>>>> of photos just uploaded to the wiki from the Brasil jam last  
>>>> weekend:
>>>>
>>>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Game_Jam_Brasil
>>>>
>>>> SJ!
>>>>
>>>> On Nov 4, 2007 10:35 PM, Andrew Clunis <andrew at orospakr.ca> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, 2007-10-26 at 14:33 -0400, Mike C. Fletcher wrote:
>>>>>> Myles Braithwaite wrote:
>>>>>>> I am definitely in.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Alright, as of now it's just Myles and I, with Soni maybe showing
>>>>>> up if
>>>>>> she's got time that weekend.  Anyone else interested?  We're  
>>>>>> still
>>>>>> thinking of the weekend of the 16th of November.  (Same time as
>>>>>> the CMU
>>>>>> Game Jam IIUC).  With such a small number of people we might be
>>>>>> able to
>>>>>> hold it at Linux Caffe.  I'm going to be in Taiwan come
>>>>>> Wednesday, so if
>>>>>> we're going to have more people I'll need to know about it soon
>>>>>> so I can
>>>>>> find a bigger venue (and/or book a table or two at Linux Caffe).
>>>>>
>>>>> I might be interested in coming too!  I'm the guy who was  
>>>>> working on
>>>>> Develop activity earlier this year, but being in Ottawa has  
>>>>> left me a
>>>>> bit cut off from all the other OLPC people.
>>>>>
>>>>> I *might* need a place to spend the night, though!
>>>>>
>>>>>> No way we'd finish all of that in a weekend, though... still, it
>>>>>> would
>>>>>> be interesting to see how far we got.  I'm sure a smaller game
>>>>>> would be
>>>>>> far more practical.  Or we could just cut it down a lot and  
>>>>>> consider
>>>>>> basic playability the goal, with the various extra rules as
>>>>>> secondary.
>>>>>
>>>>> Yeah, I suggest the iterative approach is probably best.  If your
>>>>> game
>>>>> is always at least running to some degree, more people will be
>>>>> encouraged to jump in and contribute. :)
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> Andrew Clunis
>>>>>
>>>