[OLPC-Games] Spray Play, Physics Sound and Sound Sets - GSoC Application

[Brian Jordan]

Hey all,

I know a bunch of you from the Boston Game Jam 2007, if we haven't
met--I'm Brian Jordan, a sophomore computer science major at Wesleyan
University in Connecticut. Me and my brothers Greg and Eric made the
game Spray Play during the jam weekend, but were never able to get it
running quite fast enough on the XO. Spray Play is a really fun game,
and based on the reaction to it from the school children who
playtested it at the end of the jam, I really believe it can be the
game that not only gets kids playing and getting comfortable with
their laptops, but spreads a wider interest in the XO by inviting
social play (parents even had some trouble getting their children to
stop playing the game).

My Google Summer of Code proposal consists of a few things, which I
would really appreciate immediate feedback/first impressions of
(especially the sound sets API, as that most directly concerns gaming
on the XO):

A more detailed description of these deliverables and a summer time
line are available at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Spray_Play/GSoC

(a) a conversion of the XO action game Spray Play to use the Elements
2d physics engine, utilizing and providing an exemplary implementation
of (b), (c) and (d). Also includes Crayon Physics-style "edit" mode
where users can draw their own pucks.
(b) a sound API for Elements that allows applications to tie sound
effects to physics-based events such as collisions and friction
(c) a "sound sets" API for easily managing possibly repetitive sounds in Pygame
(d) cross-platform packaging scripts for the python physics API Elements

I've mostly been talking with Chris Hager from the Elements project,
and I found this mailing list a bit late--deliberation/editing for
Google Summer of Code projects ends VERY soon. SJ and Dafydd Harries
have made good suggestions I am going to use in revising my
application (pretty late in the game). Email me your thoughts and
suggestions as soon as possible, so we can incorporate them into this
project.

Another possibility that I was mulling over as a possible GSoC
project, but never found a possible mentor to discuss it with (this
could theoretically be added on as a portion of my Spray Play summer,
if there's enough support for it) -- implementing a python game AI
toolkit as part of or interfacing with PyGame. It would provide
functions for using node and edge / grid map representations, A* (and
Djikstra's, BFS, DFS) search, minimax decision making, influence or
cost mapping, adjacency matrices, etc.

I'd love to hear what you all have to think, and regardless of my GSoC
app outcome, I'd like to work with OLPC games to ensure that the
platform has the best sound and AI capabilities possible. I also just
discovered Summer of Content, which may be a possibility if GSoC falls
through.

Thanks, and hopefully I'll speak with you all soon,
Brian Jordan