Re: [kidsgames] a Mom's eye view

[Steve Baker <sjbaker1@airmail.net>]

cwaddell@mail.orion.org wrote:

> > > So, what it boils down to is that commercial gamesbundled
> > > on a CD-ROM and costing big bucks are easy to run and freeware
> > >games that you have to download are not.  You get what you
> > > pay for!
> 
> If that is true, why is it true?  If it is not true, why do
> we want to believe it?

Well, when you have 600Mb of CD, you can afford to bundle ALL the
oddball libraries that your code depends on.  Also, with a commercial
product, you have an organized team of professional games testers
and a suite of machines with widely different configurations to try
it on.

With a downloaded freeware game, you can't afford to bundle all those
things because people are not generally too happy with a 100Mb+ download.
As a lone software developer, you get to test directly on one or maybe
two machines - plus whatever people offer feedback on AFTER the game
has started to ship.
 

> > > What makes it *seem* like Windoze games are easier is that
> > > most of them are commercial whilst most Linux games are not.
> > >
> 
> So what is commercial?  Do you mean that the folks who are
> writing them have more time because they are being paid and
> can spend money to market them?

Well, as I said - most Windoze games are commercial games that
come on CD-ROM with bunches of 'DLL's that ensure that every
possible file they might need is definitely present.

Most Linux games are downloadable freeware and suffer all the
installation hassles.

Commercial Linux games are easy to install.
Freeware windoze games are often hard to install.

> > > Getting OpenSource games onto CD-ROM inherently means they
> > > won't be free anymore....that happens though.
> 
> I don't understand what you mean.  How are you using free
> and why not?

Well they can remain free in the 'freedom' sense - but not in
the 'free beer' sense.

Games on CD-ROM can't be free because someone has to pay for
the physical media and the cost of reproducing it.  That doesn't
have to be a large cost.  I'm told that in 500+ quantities, you
can get the price of a bare CD-ROM down to under a dollar. Even
in a case with a pretty printed insert, you need no more than
$5.

> > Maybe, maybe not. At least locally, I give out a CD with freeware educational
> > games at my computer clinics we hold for the local home school group.  This
> > takes alot of time to find, download and organize such a thing, but I feel it
> > is worth it to show poeple there are alternatives.
> 
> That sounds wonderful!  Does the cd have a linux kernel on
> it?  What percent of the folks are able to figure it out and
> play the games?  I'm really proud of you for putting it
> together and I'm glad you find it  rewarding.

Yes - that's A Good Thing.
 
> > > I think I could come up with a reasonable idea for a kids game
> > > in a few evenings of thinking - but it could easily take a whole
> > > year of three or four people's hard work to turn that into a
> > > finished game.
> > >
> 
> Exactly.  So does working together really help or not?

Well, I'm reminded that Mario'64 - (the first game for Nintendo'64)
took 100 people working full-time - five years to write.  So, we might
well assume that you need more than a handful of people working in
their spare time to do the same thing!

I don't think it's truly possible to produce a game to fully
commercial standards single-handed (trust me - I've tried)...
so we certainly need people to work together.

> > > The idea that you could come to this list with an idea for a
> > > game and somehow talk a group of people into writing it for
> > > you is somewhat naive.  It would have to be a truly, awesomely
> > > amazing idea to catch people's attention I think.  Other people's
> > > views may differ - but that's how I see it.
> 
> I'm sure we (our family) will get Rolpher together
> eventually.  What I am trying to talk about though is if
> kids have ideas where can they go for help?  Do we as adults
> listen?

Well, my son has been involved in the development of my Tux-the-Penguin
game since I started 2 years ago.  He's just turned 9 - so he was
just 7 when we started.  Although this is based on a sample of one
kid and one game, I think I can speak with some experience on this.

Oliver has often asked for things in the game - but the main problem
is that he has no feel for the cost in man-hours to implement them.

I've sweated hard just to get Tux to move around, bump into things,
slide, fly and swim, throw snowballs and such.  He'll suggest that
we need a level where Tux pilots a submarine, jumps out into a rocket,
flies to the moon and flies back to earth in a hang-glider.

That would take me at least another year to implement...by which time
he'll be eleven years old and asking for a team of Penguins that play
soccer or something.

Nice though it would be to have our kids design the ideas for the
game, I'd have to say that you'd need a team of 100 adults working
at the whim of one kid - and the resulting game would be arbitary,
short-lived and generally un-playable.

Oliver always wants to dictate *exactly* what happens to Tux in
a level - neglecting the fact that if what Tux does is described
*exactly* then what you have is a movie - not an interactive game.

Games design is quite hard - even for adults.  Most of the effort
is figuring out what you can do with the minimal effort you have.
What puzzles *can* we design for our friendly Penguin - given that
he can only waddle, swim, slide, etc.

I know it sounds like a wonderful idea in theory - but you just have
to talk to your kid(s) for 20 minutes about what they'd like in
order to realise that they are not capable of driving the process.

What kids *can* do to contribute is design parts of the artwork.

I can ask Oliver to design me "An Alien" or "A Penguins' House"
or "A kind of helicopter that Tux might fly"...the results are
OK - and with a bit of adult help can be a useful component
of the game.

Oliver has developed one stage ahead of that and is sufficiently
competent at using the 3D CAD software ("AC3D") that he can
turn his ideas into actual 3D models that are directly usable
in the game.

-- 
Steve Baker                  http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1
sjbaker1@airmail.net (home)  http://www.woodsoup.org/~sbaker
sjbaker@hti.com      (work)

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