Hello everyone,
I’ve been forwarded the previous “About Pygame development” e-mails, so I’ve decided to join the mailing list to share my two cents about the “community game project” idea.
I’m all in favour for it, and wish to participate. I think it could be a significant boost if and only if done well and “marketed” properly — there’s no use for a video game if no-one knows about it.
It could also be a nice project to work on, but I think a few rules has to be drawn first in order to be successful:
1) The project should be time-limited. It’s too easy to loose motivation over time, so a short time span is preferable.
2) Tasks should be clearly defined. I’m a big advocate for methods like Agile or Scrum, therefore I think people who want to participate should know exactly what job they have to do — and what job they don’t have to do — and where they are going.
3) Don’t think too big! Game development is hard, and we should aim at reasonable goals.
4) Don’t be ashamed to copy! A lot of FLOSS video game fails because they try to be original, and they often ends-up being garbage. I won’t get into details to give you a precise example. 😉 Not everyone can be a good game designer. There is no shame in cloning an already existing simple game like Tetris or Solitaire as making a simple and enjoyable version of them is a big project already!
Best regards,
Marc-Alexandre