Re: [pygame] Community game project

[Marc-Alexandre Espiaut <marc-alexandre.espiaut@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Thomas,

Thanks for clarifying this point out.

As I said, these are only my “two cents” and I’m a nobody in this project. My only concern was that, in my humble opinion, projects that are too open-ended struggle to deliver anything interesting.

But I may be wrong!

While we could eventually have multiple community games, let’s work on one thing at once, otherwise we’ll probably end up doing none of them.

I completely agree with that.

Would anyone be interested in leading a project like this? Someone will need to have an overview of what the project is, and motivate people to contribute to it.

I wish I could. I’m good at pushing people forward and I’m always the one who want to motivate friends to build a coding project.

But I’m not sure I’ll be able to commit myself to such a task. I’m currently doing an internship and I’ll start a PhD right after that.

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Just a random idea: Have you ever considered to copy the Ludum Dare concept? Once a year, there could be a “Pygame Blitz” challenge, for people to develop a video game in 48 hours.

It would be shorter than Pyweek. Maybe it can be a good idea?

What do you think?

Marc-Alexandre

On 8/24/18 9:16 AM, Thomas Kluyver wrote:

It seems that this is an idea a lot of us like, in one form or another: Marc-Alexandre's proposal is for something quite focused, my idea was much more open-ended, and I think Nicholas was describing a model somewhere inbetween. While we could eventually have multiple community games, let's work on one thing at once, otherwise we'll probably end up doing none of them.

Would anyone be interested in leading a project like this? Someone will need to have an overview of what the project is, and motivate people to contribute to it. I definitely can't commit the necessary time to do this.

Best wishes,

Thomas

On Thu, 23 Aug 2018 at 13:27, Marc-Alexandre Espiaut <marc-alexandre.espiaut@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

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