[Yhslug] porting math game to Pygame for the OLPC laptop

Tue Jul 17 12:28:43 EDT 2007

We're currently trying to get an OLPC for development purposes. Assuming we
get an OLPC and/or set up a dev environment, there are several of us willing
to help, I'm sure. I'm interested in the .xo-fication process, so once the
game is ported over to PyGame, I wouldn't be adverse to spending some time
learning how to package it properly.

On 7/17/07, Phil Shapiro <pshapiro at his.com> wrote:
>
>
> hi yhslug community,
>
>     here's an email i received regarding getting my math game, Which
> Number is
> Increasing?, ported for the OLPC child laptop. (see below.)
>
>      just curious if there's anyone here in the yhslug community who'd be
> interested in working on this?
>
>      here's a screencast that explains and shows this game in action.
>
>       http://youtube.com/watch?v=j_fy-1stoLw
>
>        here's a newspaper article about the game that appeared on the
> front page of the arlington journal back in 1999, when i was working for
> the
> arlington public schools.
>
> http://www.his.com/~pshapiro/arlingtonjournalarticle/
>
>
>           if someone in our group is able to help with this, i'd love for
> the
> splash screen of the game to prominently say that the game was designed by
> the
> Yorktown High School Linux Users Group.
>
>               phil
>
>
>
>
> ----- Forwarded message from Mallory Chua <mchua at spork.dreamhost.com>
> -----
>     Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:47:42 -0700 (PDT)
>     From: Mallory Chua <mchua at spork.dreamhost.com>
> Reply-To: Mallory Chua <mchua at spork.dreamhost.com>
> Subject: Re: would love to share news with my math teacher
>       To: Phil Shapiro <pshapiro at his.com>
>
> Hi, Phil!
>
> Which Number Is Increasing is an awesome game, and you can (and should)
> definitely make it available online for kids to play. You can even make a
> project page on the OLPC wiki for it, so people have a way to find out
> about it. A good example of a project page is Kuku:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Kuku
>
> However, in order to be considered as a candidate for inclusion on the
> laptop images (the software that actually ships on the physical laptops we
> send out, or secondarily and more common, included in the official OLPC
> sample library at http://dev.laptop.org/pub/content/Library/) the game
> needs to be made into an .xo, which is the special kind of file we use for
> activities on the laptop.
>
> If you're interested in doing this (our next release is in 2 months, and
> it's entirely possible for WNII to be ready by then), here's what I would
> suggest you do.
>
> 1. Join the Games mailing list and introduce yourself (go
> to lists.laptop.org) and tell them what you're trying to do.
>
> 2. Port the game to Pygame(.org) or Flash (although Pygame is likely
> easier, and somewhat better-supported by the development community here).
> This is easier than it sounds. This is also a really good opportunity for
> you to take a bright high schooler or two and use this as an opportunity
> to mentor them in software development ("hey kids, want to learn how to
> code? I've got a projet for you...")
>
> 3. Once the game is converted to Pygame, it needs to be packaged into an
> ...xo file. A good person to ask about the .xo-ization process in general
> would be Mitchell Charity, who's made several of his games into .xo
> activities already and has been trying to get more developers through the
> process. You can leave a message on his talk page on the wiki
> (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User_talk:MitchellNCharity) or catch him online
> on the #olpc-content channel of irc.freenode.net as user mcharity. Another
> good person to contact would be Julius Lucks
> <wiki.laptop.org/go/User_talk:Lucks> one of the creators of the Kuku game,
> who recently went through the same newbie-to-developer process himself,
> and is writing a guide on how to package existing games for the .xo.
>
> So that's how you'd get it included on a laptop image (shipped on a
> physical laptop as one of the first games a kid would get on their
> computer), or in the games section of the library.
>
> HOWEVER.
>
> I think you can have far, far more impact than simply releasing a single
> game right now on the .xo - and in a way that would leverage your existing
> content, experience, and skills as well.
>
> How would you like to be, instead of the creator of a single game possibly
> released on an XO image at some indeterminate point in time, one of the
> coordinators of the OLPC Javascript Game Development Community?
>
> That would mean organizing a development community (starting with yourself
> and your stuff) to create and curate something like
> http://javascript.internet.com/games/ (but hopefully prettier and more
> kid-friendly). We'd then link to your collection in our library.
>
> I know this is a lot - my apologies for not explaining the process for
> inclusion on the XO image more clearly before. let me know what you think
> and if you have any questions. If you'd like to have a higher-bandwidth
> conversation, give me a call at 847.970.8484 (call anytime, I'll typically
> pick up unless I'm in a meeting).
>
> Cheers,
>
> -Mel
>
> --
> Phil Shapiro  pshapiro at his.com
> http://www.his.com/pshapiro/briefbio.html
> http://philsrssfeed.blogspot.com
> http://www.his.com/pshapiro/stories.menu.html
>
> "Wisdom starts with wonder." - Socrates
> "Learning happens through gentleness."
>
>
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-- 
Nicholas Wheeler
Systems Administrator
Development InfoStructure
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