Re: [crack-attack-devel] Fwd: About crack-attack (KDE4 port)

[Kevin Webb]

On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 01:38:23 -0500
"Andrew Sayman" <address@hidden> wrote:

We need to get Hugo on the dev list!

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Hugo Parente Lima <address@hidden>
> Date: Jan 28, 2008 11:24 PM
> Subject: Re: About crack-attack (KDE4 port)
> To: Andrew Sayman <address@hidden>
> 
> 
> On Jan 28, 2008 1:42 PM, Andrew Sayman <address@hidden>
> wrote:
> > First of all, I find this entire endeavour of yours awesome. I'm
> > cc'ing the devel list to discuss it.

I second that, this sounds great!

> > On Jan 28, 2008 1:46 AM, Hugo Parente Lima <address@hidden>
> > wrote:
> > > Hi, I'm porting crack-attack to KDE4 (the port is 90% done), you
> > > is the current maintainer, so I want to inform you and maybe do
> > > few questions:
> >
> > I have some questions for you too:
> >
> > Are you doing this against the latest SVN or the last release? The
> > latest SVN is miles ahead of our last release and really I've just
> > been far behind on getting it out. This actually counts as lighting
> > a fire under my ass to get the next step officially done.
> 
> From the latest release (a bad idea, I know).
> 
> > > - I do not plan to change the game play, but I plan to write some
> > > code to improve the multiplayer fun in a near future (support up
> > > to six players like tetrinet, multiplayer chat, etc via GGZ, etc).
> >
> > I've been wanting to do some of these things for a while. I think
> > the multiplayer chat isn't necessary, but I won't begrudge anybody
> > that implements it and uses it.
> >
> > - How do you expect the six player mode to work?
> 
> Simple, like tetrinet, pressing the keys 2-6 you choose who you will
> attack, so again like tetrinet you can play with teams too.

That sounds interesting.  I can think of another potential option for
3+ players, and it would be a "last player standing" free for all game
in which garbage goes to everyone, and the winner is the one who
survives longest.  If we can support the tetrinet style, we can
probably do this too.

> > There are two things in the pipeline that I've been working on
> > off-and-on lately:
> > - An AI you can watch play
> > - A split screen mode so multiplayer matches you can see the other
> > player. As a note to Webb, broadcasting your moves will be optional
> > for those of you that want your tactics kept in the dark.

That sounds cool too, and I wouldn't be terribly worried about
opponents seeing me play.  If they're watching me, they're probably not
concentrating enough to win. ;)

> > Have you done any work towards either of these things? I'd rather
> > work together on the network code than potentially collide.
> > Would GGZ require not using ENet anymore? I've been really really
> > happy with ENet both in coding and its performance.
> 
> I did not started it and do not know about ENet, maybe because I do
> not touch in the svn code at the moment.
> 
> > > - To make crack-attack in conformance with kdegames GUI
> > > guidelines I removed the highscores code and I'm using the
> > > kdegames highscores code.
> >
> > How well does this work outside of KDE? Do you know if it integrates
> > at all with the GNOME one as well?
> >
> > Essentially, there are many users of Crack-Attack that prefer GTK+,
> > and also that don't like using desktop environments at all. How does
> > this change affect them?
> 
> I know... this is a problem.. it add a lot of dependencies that is
> useless to a lot of crack-attack users.

As long as we make the dependencies optional, I don't think it'll be a
problem.

> > > - I also replaced all glut code with Qt code (basically the
> > > keyboard and window creation routines... few lines).
> >
> > Considering the above concern, I'd like to find a way to maintain
> > both of these inputs on top of each other if its not too unwieldy.
> > I know the current design is not very modular in that aspect, but
> > I'm working on it.
> >
> > > I do not know if you agree with these changes... anyway your
> > > opinion is important, because I do not know if the game can
> > > remain with the name crack-attack and be just "the kde4 port" or
> > > need to change their name and be officially a fork.
> >
> > I'd rather do what we can to not make this a fork and even not make
> > it the "KDE4 port." I'd like to find a way to make this a "building
> > with KDE oriented flags." One of the problems that Crack-Attack!
> > has had since Nelson moved on is that people end up developing
> > little things for it in pockets and never talking to each other.
> > The more of this development we can bring to one place the better
> > for everybody.
> 
> Well... I think that we can do the KDE4 version, the GTK version and
> the command line version in a single source, I dont know about the
> newer code, but the only thing that is needed is modularize the
> keyboard input and the OpenGL initialization (glut window creation,
> etc), so with really few #ifdef's we can do all in a single code base.

Indeed, I really think we should do a single source.  Andrew's point
about fragmentation is very true, and I'd hate to see yet another
(potentially incompatible) Crack-attack out there.

> Ah... I'm that guys that hate autotools... maybe because I never had
> enough patience to learn it... so I also changed the building tool to
> cmake (www.cmake.org).

I haven't used cmake myself, but I've heard a lot of good things about
it.  I wouldn't be opposed to learning it and switching to it, assuming
nobody else minds.  I've never particularly liked the autotools either.

> I'll download the latests revision from CVS and see what can I do.
> 
> > > When I complete the fork (this week) I'll put the code under kde
> > > svn repository and later try to submit it to kdegames package,
> > > but I need a answer about the game name, if you want to join the
> > > project, etc.
> >
> > Keep the name. I don't want to move SVN, so we'll have to figure
> > something out. Most of my active development is actually done using
> > GIT and then just patching out for savannah.
> >
> > > I'm also sending two screenshots.
> >
> > For the latest release I'd really love if you added some info about:
> > Bjørn Lindeijer  <address@hidden>
> > He dropped like a bomb on the project for a little while and cleaned
> > up a lot of code and upgrading to the latest ENet which I didn't
> > even know existed at the time.
> > --
> > Andrew Sayman
> > Jabber: address@hidden
> >
> --
> Hugo Parente Lima
> "Precisamos de mais gênios humildes no mundo, hoje somos poucos!"
> JID: address@hidden

Just thought I'd throw my two cents in there.  Nice to meet you Hugo!

As a side note, we have an IRC channel (#crack-attack) on freenode, and
we could always use some more competition! :)

-Kevin

-- 
Kevin Webb
Computer Science
UC San Diego
865-567-7453