Likalo

Dear Planet,

As you all know KDEGames is by far the most innovative, and well designed part of Linux, and of KDE in particular
But in this release cycle we have literally jumped over our heads trying to please you.

Now, everybody knows just how cool the mummies are, don't you? And the theme of ancient Egypt seems to be everyone's favorite no matter how much time passes. So to stay up to date, or maybe even hopelessly out of it, we present you the new set of the default themes in KDEGames - Egypt!

Yes, you've guessed it! In 4.3 almost everything will look like it came straight from the grand museum in Cairo
And here is a small preview of what to expect:


KSudoku - sudoku puzzle game with lots and lots of layouts to master your problem solving skills. A must for CEOs and Executives.

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KPat - Good old patience game. No self-respecting housewife should be seen without one.

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KBlocks - The most played game of all time - tetris!

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KBreakout - How good a wall crasher are you?

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And this is just a tip of an iceberg! KDEGames offers lots and lots more to choose from.

Of course all I'm showing you are juts themes and cosmetic changes. There is lots more under the hood. Discover the magic of casual gaming all by yourself. All you have to do is install KDEGames module, I'm sure you can easily find in your local KDE4 repository.

Enjoy; and see you next time.

Preface

As you probably know (if you've read previous KDEGames post) there was a “must fix” identifying gathering held in KDEGames IRC channel past Friday.
Well, first and foremost I must say that reviewing all 30 games within a mere 1-2 hours was a totally unrealistic goal And we of course did realize this before we've started; this meeting however, was more of an experiment. And it was a success. Even though the attendance was lower then we had anticipated, but it was for the better, as larger crowds are harder to control and order.

Using the occasion I would like to thank everyone who has attended, and even those who wanted to, but couldn't due personal issues.

Meeting observations and summary

All the attending parties behaved rather nicely, and in orderly fashion, indicating the possibility or repeating experience, without any need for greater level of control and restriction.
Unfortunately only 3 games has been reviewed withing scheduled two hour time. This showed us we had to either:

1. change the mode of review,
2. or split the review into a few consecutive sessions, effectively spreading it over a week, or so, time.

The total length of the session was some two and a half an hour, with all the participants showing signs of fatigue at the end of the second hour. Possible solutions to this problem could be:

1. taking a half an hour break in the middle,
2. shortening overall duration to hour and forty minutes.

The topics of the review per game were:

1. functionality (start, playability);
2. performance (speed, responsiveness);
3. appearance and GUI (menus, consistency, graphics, translatability);
4. documentation (readability, completeness, translatability).

The detailed suggestions list follows.

Bovo

functionality (start, playability);
Remarks:

• default windows size too small – windows on startup appears to be too small;
• content positioning problem - the content is always aligned to the left, while the preferred position is center;

performance (speed, responsiveness);
Remarks:

• demo/animation mode is slow, freezes app – suggested to add PC speed testing;
• AI responds too fast – suggested to add some time before the app responds;
• "Losses: 1” in the status bar even after you press NEW – it appears to be automatically saved on application closure, not sure if it's really needed;
• PC always starts first, should alternate - as per the help file “Because the first player always has an advantage over the second player, Bovo will alternate the players, switching them every new game.”;

appearance and GUI (menus, consistency, graphics, translatability);
Remarks:

• default theme – green squares indicate wins, but why not use straight line instead?;
• "Ridiculously easy" – not a good choice of wording! do we need so many easy modes?;
• Switching themes to Scribbles->Spacey->Gomoku->High Contrast and back to Scribbles breaks theming (probably breaks on Gomoku->High Contrast);

documentation (readability, completeness. Translatability);
Remarks:

• “Number of possible players” is indicated as “two” in introduction, while game only supports one player;
• FAQ is irrelevant;
• The How to play suggests that game window has to be resized at start, the window should be fixed and this clause removed;

Kapman

functionality (start, playability);
Remarks

• game asks if you want to quit an app, while no other game asks this;

performance (speed, responsiveness);
Remarks

• keyboard shortcuts (game keys) are not configurable;

appearance and GUI (menus, consistency, graphics, translatability);
Remarks:

• default theme is a possible copyright infliction;
• yellow text color is hard to see in the default theme;
• change level dialog in badly designed;
• no way to configure sounds, and default sounds are annoying;
• what's the purpose of “Your score is:” dialog, if the score board displays if right after again?;

documentation (readability, completeness. Translatability);
Remarks:

• FAQ is called Questions and Answers here, which is inconsistent;
• documentation does never mention what “energizer” is;

Katomic

functionality (start, playability);
Remarks:

• at first start the content of the window is not scaled correctly, the preview window can not be seen;
• the message (kgame nification item) shown when the first level is finished for the first time can be too wide for the game window, and is hidden behind the game content;

performance (speed, responsiveness);
Remarks: NONE
appearance and GUI (menus, consistency, graphics, translatability);
Remarks:

• why is it there "Restart Game", instead of "New" like in all other games;

documentation (readability, completeness. Translatability);
Remarks:

• "You will see green arrows pointing in the directions where atom can move." -> "You will see green arrows pointing in the directions where the atom can be moved.;
• "Thing about every of your moves …”;

Data analysis

In each case the participants were asked to start the game in question and note if there was anything they wished to add/change/remove as far as the overall look, feel, and behavior are concerned.

The most active topic has proven to be appearance and GUI (menus, consistency, graphics, translatability), as it received the most remarks and criticism. This indicates that, should we take the three above mentioned games and use them as a president, GUI is the Achilles' foot of the module, and is in need of attention. The next problematic topic is the documentation which may need a complete review. As a contrast, the playability and performance seem to be in generally good shape.

Conclusion

In the end of the review, when everyone's got generally tired, and we've decided to call it a night, there were a few good suggestions in regards to the later reviews of the module.

• Firstly, as human interaction seems to be the key here, we have decided to continue with the reviews, taking into the account all the above mentioned issues.
• Next, it was suggested to use wiki as another source of user input and suggestions. In this regard we need to decide how to set it up for the best possible result.
• Lastly, there is a possibility we could utilize the newly opened KDE forum for this same purposes. Once again certain guidelines will have to be put into place, to limit the user input, and make the process ans clear and straight forward as possible.

This concludes my report. Thank you for your patience, and see you all at the next review day, sometime this week.