[kidsgames] Re: Light Princess

[Terry Hancock <hancock@earthlink.net>]

Kidsgames Project Coordinator - Jeff Waddell wrote:
> Count me in :)

Okay, those are the magic words!

> Would you like to register lightprincess.sourceforge.net and put the code
> there, having the kidsgames site point to it or would you prefer to have
> me put this into the main kidsgames.sourceforge.net site as a subproject?
> (Did that question make sense?)

Somewhat.  Here's what I think:
I'll make a little website expounding on the virtues of "The Light
Princess"
along with a short FAQ about the sort of questions I'm getting here, and
I'll
launch a "The Light Princess" project on Source Forge, to give the
project
a spine.

In order to ante up our bid, we will begin putting up a (very
simple) storyboard or animatic for the opening sequence of 
the game as a way to attract interest.

Meanwhile, especially, since jm and Doug Loss are working on another
game ("Aida Sanfernando"), perhaps the game engine development (if
there is to be one), can be set up separately.  Then we just link
the two if they need to be associated.

> There are several engines out there, which I have not had a chance to
> explore thoroughly.

This exploration task is part of what I'm hoping
more experienced/interested game programmers will
do.  I'm hoping to give a vague, Human-readable
idea of what we need, and let you figure out what
looks like it might do the trick.

> MOST programmer's 1) are TAUGHT (and usually extremely good at) linear
> thinking 2) are NOT VISUALLY oriented.

I seem to be fairly unusual in this respect -- I'm a VERY
visually oriented programmer.  This may explain why I've
mostly done scientific and graphics programming in the
past.  

> This is what causes the tools to be linear and non-visual.  If we (as
> programmer's start thinking outside the box, and are given the problem in
> a way that we can solve it, we general [given sufficient personal
> motivation] will.  Having a creation tool that almost ANYONE could use
> would make our desired goal much easier to reach.

Well, as my "real job" (some people would say I haven't got
a "real" job, but let's not go there :)), I'm working on a
programming language/system that DOES use visual modes
extensively.  This is Arachne, which I'll be willing to
discuss off-list, but it's a whole other can o' worms!
Assuming it really is a new enough idea, it will probably
appear on Source Forge sometime during the next year.  I'm 
still spending time define what it really ought to be -- 
it's just a loose collection of ideas at present.  The 
need for visual modes is driven more by the application 
than by my personal biases, but they're in there too, 
of course.

> I noticed that you are "extremely frustated" on the programming side and
> only "sowewhat frustated" on the Artistic side.  So it would seem that you
> find the programming parts to be the hold out, whereas programmer's such
> as Steve find it the other way around.

Mostly, the issue is that my programming skills will
be in use elsewhere.  For fun, I would like to contribute
to the artistic side of a game.  Likewise, Rosalyn would
like to write the creative part of it and adapt the
original story.

Also, although I imagine I could learn game programming,
it seems likely that there are others who would be
more interested in it than I am, with consequently
higher-quality results.  With Open Source, the best
solution seems to be sticking with the part of the
project that you _love_ to think about.  Fortunately,
there are enough different developers that _somebody_
seems to like every needed part.

> -->  After
> -->a half-hour or so of brainstorming, she settled on
> -->"The Light Princess," by George MacDonald.
> 
> Great where can we find the text?  Is it online yet?

In dozens of places, evidently.  Of the ones that
have been presented to me, this one seems to have
the nicest interface (Thank you, jm):
 
http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/lprincss.html

> I don't know how talented my voice is, but I'm willing to read text in
> various voices at the very least.

Fear not.  We live in L.A.  I suspect I can locate voices
eventually.  I'll probably do the narration for the
animatic.

> I Believe what you may be looking for is WORLDFORGE.  www.worldforge.org.
> Make all the online WORLDS you desire, including LightPrincess world.
> I've got an old copy of the this project from CVS, and have not made time
> to really explore it very throughly, it's 26M of stuff so well you see.
> Anyway it's has clients for several platforms and it uses the tcp/ip for
> the client/server communications so it's already networkable.  Let me know
> if it is at least close enough to be adaptable to what you desire.

I took a look at this.  It might be useable, but it seems
like SERIOUS OVERKILL.  I wonder if there isn't something
simpler.  Some of the things it has that we probably don't
need:

- 3D rendering / subjective views
- Networked, multiplayer design

Also, the "character attribute" role-playing game type stuff
is probably completely unnecessary for this project.

> -->2) An interactive tool for making the animated sprites
> -->   needed, that is easy enough for an animator (i.e. not
> -->   a programmer) to use.  Of course, I can provide tech
> -->   support, since I am a programmer, if that makes it an
> -->   easier target.
> -->
> 
> GIMP?  or a plugin thereof?  What tools do professional animators use?
> Can we get ports or make a clone?

No, not Gimp. That'll work for backgrounds, but sprites are another
matter.  The thing is, _someone_ mentioned a sprite editor on
a mailing list recently, and I thought it must've been this one, but
I'm not sure.  They were talking about an Amiga program, and looking
for a Linux equivalent. However, I can't find it.  I keep hoping if
I mention it in enough places, the original poster will speak up.

> Many are suggesting XML, however I have no real knowledge of XML.  

Neither do I.

> I
> suggest getting the story and dialogs for the story into textfiles so that
> we can manipulate that data.

Rosalyn has already begun this process by writing the script for
the introduction.
 
> -->#1 could be acheived by using a "generic adventure game engine"
>
> GAGE? hmmmm, would this be a combination engine that would run all the old
> stuff or be an entirely new thing with it's own dataset file format?

Frankly, I don't want to overspecify!  I want the programmers
to be able to enjoy what they're doing.  I'm inclined to think
this would be a new thing, unless it's an already written kit
that we just don't happen to know about yet.

I think I've already given enough of an idea of what we
need in the package in this and my previous e-mails.  I will
summarize for the website I'm starting.

> Luckily in Free Software we HAVE forever to take if we NEED to.  It

But, realistically, I would lose interest if it did.

> -->#3 Really involves too things: helping us make the decision about
> -->what to study, and helping find the materials to learn about it.
> -->Answering specific questions after we got started would be good,
> -->too, of course.
> -->
> 
> In order to help in these decisions we need to see clearly what you are
> deciding between.  You have made a good start and described your needs
> well.  If we don't give you answers immediately, it may be because 1) we
> DON'T know yet. 2) we are formulating such answers and it just takes time
> 3) we don't currently have the time to answer but will when we can 4) we
> know but we just don't like you ( just kidding )
> 
> Be patient with us, if we miss something and you feel it needs to be
> rehashed feel free to bring it up again.

This sounds like you are accepting the task of checking out
game engines and trying to evaluate them with respect to
the tasks we've laid out.  Of course we realize this will
take time!  As I mentioned in an earlier post I am currently
doing a similar level of research on a different topic, so,
yes, I understand. But left to myself, I'm probably not going
to find time to research game engines myself.  For one thing,
I don't think I'm the best qualified person to do this.

Failing finding an appropriate engine, of course, there is
the option of writing one.  The break-over point between
which represents more work (searching or writing), I leave
to you.

Clearly, we are not asking for the state-of-the-art in
game engines -- we're basically looking for a free version
of something that existed for DOS/Windows ten years ago.
 
> I hope to use your experience to create a How to write an Educational
> Kids Game for Linux document.

That sounds useful.

> -->If it works, we have some more ambitious ideas ("The Light
> -->Princess" will be a fairly small game, in terms of the number
> -->of puzzles, characters, and rooms), but let's stick to square
> -->one.
> 
> How about circle one :)

Too metaphysical for me, dude. ;)

> -->So, will there be any takers?
> Yep.  I'll help.

That's what we were hoping to hear!

> Is it time to resurrect the discussion about KidsGameBuilder v0.0.1 ?

Maybe.

This will probably be my last direct post on this subject
until I've had a chance to collect stuff onto the website,
I'm starting to get the same questions more than once.

I will announce the website / Source Forge project once
I set it up (after figuring out how, of course).

-- 
Terry Hancock
hancock@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~hancock/index.html
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