[OLPC-Games] Hello and feasibility questions

[Noah Kantrowitz]

On Oct 6, 2007, at 3:24 PM, Ryan Kelln wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm a designer/programmer/artist and a big fan of the OLPC. I'm hoping
> that I can put together a game for the release (or shortly  
> thereafter?)
>
> I have a design in mind, but I'd like to ask some feasibility  
> questions
> before I go further.
>
> 1) When will final code have to be submitted to make it out to the  
> kids
> with their first laptop?

Unlikely at this point.

> 2) How is software added to the laptop after that (i.e. is it easy
> enough and will enough kids be able to get the game if I don't make  
> ship
> date?)

Through a still-being-made content indexing a distribution system. It  
should be quite easy, but then again its always _supposed_ to be easy :)

>
> Looks like I'll be using PyGame, and I have experience with Python but
> not with that library.
> 3) Has anyone done vector-style graphics with pygame? I see it  
> supports
> anti-aliased lines (pygame.draw.aalines) and surface arrays for doing
> image manipulation, but what are peoples actual experiences?

Yes, the example USInvaders game is all vector based. Its quite fast,  
though surfarrays can take a bit of getting used to if you are used  
to typeless programming.

>
> 4) One concept in the design has a player drawing a line shape with  
> the
> touch pad. Another player then tries to match that line shape  
> (again by
> drawing using the touchpad). How sensitive and how good a resolution
> does the touchpad have? Is this going to be doable or just  
> frustrating?
> (Can anyone read this PDF?
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Image:KGDMFA001-non-confidential.pdf
> Requires Japanese language pack supposedly... )

The tablet (resistive) mode of the touchpad is specifically there to  
support things like this, but how its integrated is still somewhat  
flaky last I knew.

>
> 5) The game can be played by larger groups of players, maybe even  
> 20-24
> players. Can the OLPC/mesh networking deal with that?

Yes, it should scale quite a bit beyond that hopefully.

--Noah