OLPC Game Jam for an XO Laptop

An anonymous reader writes "The OLPC project has announced a three-day game development jam session is scheduled to begin June 8 on the campus of Olin College, an engineering school in Needham, Massachusetts. 'The game jam is an opportunity for developers to create new types of games that rely on features of the XO's design such as mesh networking between nearby users, an integrated still or video camera, and a tablet mode for mobile gaming. Beyond creating games that teach specific tasks like counting or reading, OLPC hopes the contest will produce templates that allow kids to build their own games, according to OLPC's development guidelines.' The grand prize is a free OLPC laptop. All games created at the weekend-long event will be licensed under the GNU General Public License, and posted on the SourceForge site."

I Can't Wait...

....F0or someone to port Quake III Team Arena!

Novelty item?

How likely does the grand prize winner(s) need an OLPC laptop?

Re:Novelty item?

How likely does the grand prize winner(s) need an OLPC laptop?

If you're taking part in this competition, chances are very good that you support the mission of the OLPC program. If you win and receive an actual unit, it just makes further development and testing for the platform that much easier for you. It's more about supporting the goal than it is about the payout (hey, isn't that what OSS is generally about?).

Re:Novelty item?

I do quite a bit of development for my PDA and whilst I have an emulator environment for it whilst developing, nothing says "usability test" better than putting it on the device and going sitting away from a real pc with a mouse.

Airfare?

How is it possible for the vast majority of people who wish to compete in these events to do so without having to spend hundreds of dollars on round-trip airfare?

Re:Airfare?

How is it possible for the vast majority of people who wish to compete in these events to do so without having to spend hundreds of dollars on round-trip airfare?

It looks like there's also a $100 registration fee, but that includes food and lodging for the event. Seems to me like they're actually working pretty hard to keep it inexpensive. There's also a scholarship [hackronym.com] to reduce the costs for students. I'm sure they'd be happy to do more, given the money--see their donation [hackronym.com] page if you know anyone that could chip in.

I know professionalism is out of the question

But if the summary includes a reference to sourceforge, you should disclose the business relationship through OSTG. No exceptions, no matter how tangential.

Yes, many people know, and there is a (small) link on the top of the page, but even the semblance of editing is appreciated.

Hrmm....

Wii Sports with the foot-operated power generator [olpcnews.com], anyone?

This is pretty cool

A few comments,
One, making sure that all the games developed are released under the GPL is a far cry from similar development contests by commercial companies that stipulate that all entries become the property of the sponsoring company, this should encourage people to enter.
Two, while the prize is (as far as I can tell) only for the "best" game developed, I'm sure a number of people will enter just for the fun of it, and because their work will still be available to them (see first thought) they won't be worried about it being appropriated for no compensation.

Three, while I can't really think of any "innovative" games using the specific aspects of the XO mentioned (Mesh Networking, Camera and Tablet Mode), I'm sure other folk are more imaginative then I am. (Perhaps something along the lines of hide and seek, using the laptops?)

Four, the idea of a development environment for the children to develop their own games is very important in my opinion. As has been seen with various commercial games, user content often makes or breaks a game, and is often far more fun then the content that came with the game.

Emulator

I am sure its in the FA but this is slashdot.....

It these an emulator or sdk of something one could use to try and develop for hardware involved here ?

Sell XOs and you might get developers

The biggest problem right now is that you simply can't buy an XO laptop, its not even clear if you ever will be able to. That is kind of discouraging to me as a developer.

Or hey

Here's a better idea: release some kind of unified API that will allow folks with regular hardware to build games for the OLPC.

Re:Or hey

You can do that now with a virtual machine image (see the wiki [laptop.org]). I have been able to boot it in qemu and even developed my own game for it using straight-up python & pygtk. However, my game can also run on any box that has python & pygtk, it is not taking advantage of any OLPC-specific software or hardware. One advantage of having everybody in a single physical location is that things like the built-in networking and cameras can be tested out.
    A little OT, but I think that the interface is generally pretty good, but at least so far in the beta builds the file-selection dialogs for opening up text & drawings are still the (absolutely atrocious) Gnome defaults that are made even worse because the limited screen real estate on OLPC means the fields are too small to even see properly. Making a simplified and OLPC-friendly file dialog would be a major improvement.

incoherent

Isn't the purpose of a headline to give one a rough idea of that article without having to read it, to pique the interest. As Lisa Simpson would say, "I recognise those words, but that sentence makes no sense" (until you have read the article.)

That definite goes in the top 10 worst /. headlines.

large nintendo DS?

how about it? except for the lack of a secondary screen, its kinda like a large DS.

so any party game concepts that work on the DS should work on the XO i guess ;)

Sim City

Or some economic emulation clone along the same sort of lines. Y'know teach em from the start how an economy works and what it takes to be successful.

 

Brilliant!

That is exactly what children in impoverished parts of the world need- a game machine.

ORPC

I have a much better idea. How about "One RAZR Phone per Child" (ORPC) instead? Sure, these kids don't have spreadsheet programs or clean water, but those are both trivial concerns compared to their inability to send digital images over text messages and to have the Pac-Man theme song play whenever they receive one of those digital images of their friends' in their hovels. And don't forget the ability to "skin" their phone with their favorite rapper.

The Incredible Machine!

The killer game for the OLPC would be an open-sourced "The Incredible Machine" clone, i think. Whatever happened to that franchise, anyhow?One of the greatest non-violent games ever created, IMHO.
Something along the SimCity games would be cool, too, i guess.
Maybe the owners of those franchises (Dynamix [?] and Maxis) could even help out a bit, for PR reasons?

Soccer anyone?

A soccer ball is cheaper and the game is multiplayer and 'mobile'. What about the OLPC you ask. It can be used as one of the goal posts.

MMORPGs

Is it just me, or would the mesh networking and some of the built in software not be perfect for an MMORPG. The game topology can represent the actual locations of people, one can "Warp" into the internet play area by using an access point.

Millennium Campaign Games Wiki

http://wiki.millenniumcampaign.org/olpc/concepts [millenniumcampaign.org] Share your game concept for the XO machine - there are some fairly interesting ones up already.

Squeak? eToys? Hello?

"... OLPC hopes the contest will produce templates that allow kids to build their own games..." You know, this is basically a Python machine on a Linux OS called Sugar. It has eToys installed, which already does this. Kids can build games, animations, etc. But it uses Squeak Smalltalk, and by gosh, those people at the OLPC, even though they've installed it as a default application, don't seem to want to tell anybody that.

Efficient Code -

I'll probably get modded down for this -- but, I'm really against the OLPC project, the only good thing I can see coming out of it is efficient code as a result of its (relatively) "outdated" specs.

Which is a Good Thing(TM).

Re:I see it

Please don't be fucking stupid. The whole think of the children shit is bullshit. Don't fear monger. The following is from a post I made at another forum (RevLeft.com) http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66768&v iew=findpost&p=1292321122 [revleft.com] .

If nothing else, as I said earlier, most sexual abuse on children is by relatives and close family friends. It isn't by "paedophiles", but is rather simply opportunistic. The people we should be worried about are those who actually are abusive, not just those who have thoughts that maybe abusive (or maybe about consensual sex for all we know).
QUOTE (http://www.nncc.org/Abuse/sex.abuse.html)
Eighty-five percent of sexual assaults on children are committed by someone the child knows and usually trusts - an immediate family member, a relative, a neighbor, or a friend of the family.

QUOTE (http://www.ocfs.state.ny.us/main/publications/Pub 1154text.asp)
In many cases reported in New York State and nationwide, children are sexually abused by people they know and trust - relatives (even parents or siblings), friends of the family, and authority figures (teachers, youth group leaders, clergy, etc.). Sexual abuse usually occurs in places where children feel comfortable or safe - at home or in the home of a family friend.

QUOTE (http://www.bbc.co.uk/parenting/your_kids/safety_s exual.shtml)
Sexual abuse is far more likely to be carried out by someone a child knows, such as a relative or friend of the family, than by a stranger. And sometimes older children abuse younger children.

Re:I see it

Remember Jeff from Coupling? The one obsessed with breasts? Well, Jeff was harmless.