Improving the functionality of KDE Games

KDE User and Administrator Conference

KDE Developers and Users Conference 2005

Speakers: Josef Spillner

Language: English

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Check the Schedule for an overview of all talks during this conference.

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KDE today ships with a nice game package, however development of free games has advanced a lot, and many improvements could be added to increase the feature set and the consistency of the games. The tutorial presents some useful functionality which is worth being included into KDE games, like for instance:

• common widgets like highscore lists, connection dialogs and chat windows
• installation of new themes and game data using KNewStuff
• detection of LAN servers by using DNS-SD
• graphics engines: SDL integration, OpenGL and Qt4 painting
• using GGZ Gaming Zone services

Especially the last item should be a goal for KDE 4.0, as GGZ is one of the largest cross-desktop multiplayer game frameworks which has matured a lot over the years and is now actively seeking to offer its services to existing games. Highscores and rankings, tournaments and team management, web-based savegame visualisation, personalised AI players and other features are available.

In this tutorial, game developers and players can see what is possible already, and afterwards exchange ideas to see what can and what cannot be realised for the next major KDE release. A meeting of free game developers is expected to happen during aKademy, so that cross-project ideas can be discussed with many open minds.

http://games.kde.org/ - KDE games center http://www.ggzgamingzone.org/ - the GGZ project

About Josef Spillner

Josef Spillner is a student of computer sciences at TU Dresden/Germany and has been involved with KDE development since 1999. For the last months, he concentrated on aspects of server infrastructure projects which shall help the integration of internet features into the desktop. As his initial involvement focused on KDE gaming, the development of KDE games is also another central aspect of his work.

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Suggestions and inquiries direct please to KDE aKademy Team.