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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."
....F0or someone to port Quake III Team Arena!
How likely does the grand prize winner(s) need an OLPC laptop?
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?
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.
Leben Sie jetzt die Fragen.
Wii Sports with the foot-operated power generator, anyone?
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.
I wank in the shower.
Give them NetHack. That will show them a time sink. And that's a valuable lesson.
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 ?
Cruise TT
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 .
b 1154text.asp)
s exual.shtml)
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/Pu
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_
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.
I wank in the shower.
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.
Here's a better idea: release some kind of unified API that will allow folks with regular hardware to build games for the OLPC.
even if this article's points were true, it doesn't give you geeks in your parents' basements a tan....don't you have something better to spend your money on, like charity?
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.)
/. headlines.
That definite goes in the top 10 worst
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
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
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
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.
Deleted
That is exactly what children in impoverished parts of the world need- a game machine.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
don't know why but feel compelled to resond.
This may be anecotal, but I was molested by someone
that preyed on the coming of age trouble I had at home.
He WAS a stranger, that acted like a friend. He hung
around the video arcade and lured his victims very
passively, then when something happened he made sure
you felt like it was your fault / you put yourself there.
It was all very sneaky psychological and devious.
A child molester will do all sorts of messed up things
to get what he wants, believe me. His name was Sam
and this happened at the Silver Ball Gardens in Berkeley, CA in 1983.
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.
Best Slashdot comment ever
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?
Remember Jeff from Coupling? The one obsessed with breasts? Well, Jeff was harmless.
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.
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.
http://wiki.millenniumcampaign.org/olpc/concepts Share your game concept for the XO machine - there are some fairly interesting ones up already.
augment your senses: http://sensebridge.net/
"most sexual abuse on children is by relatives and close family friends."
Thank you for your interesting anecdote. Yes there are freaks and weirdos out there. The people who rape adults are just as bad as the people who rape children. Your anecdote does not, however, detract from the GP's point (which is bolded above), most sexual abuse, not all.
..but the aerodynamics of these laptops may be suboptimal, as well as the danger of imflicting impact wounds (beat's minefield hopscotch, though, I suppose).
Maybe dodgeball^h^h^h^hsquare?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
been there done that bizatches.
i don't know where you come from but consensual sex with a child is wrong on any level. tell me how a 9yr old can have consenual sex. i will also provide you with the definition of consensual that i am working from-
Informed consent is a legal condition whereby a person can be said to have given consent based upon a full appreciation and understanding of the facts and implications of any actions, with the individual being in possession of all of his faculties (not mentally retarded or mentally ill), and his judgment not being impaired at the time of consenting (by sleepiness, intoxication by alcohol or drugs, other health problems, etc.).
emphasis is mine.
Please don't be fucking stupid.
"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."-- Fred Hampton
"... 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.
GPS Quake !
More seriously, even if the mesh doesn't provide GPS-grade precision, the mesh may have some interesting localisation-like possibility, like counting how much "mesh-hops" apart are the children. This could enable some guesstimation about position.
Maybe not enough for live-action Quake.
But definitely something to consider for making a kind of Radar-Assisted game of Hide'n'Seek.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
My name is Sam and I used to hang around the Silver Ball Gardens video arcade in Berkeley in 1983. I went there to fuck small boys. Gee, nice to meet you after all these years!
Which is a Good Thing(TM).