[Scummvm-devel] GSoC application

[Willem Jan Palenstijn]

Hi all,

Our Google Summer of Code application is due this week, and Arnaud, Eugene and
I (ScummVM's GSoC admins) have been discussing how to make our application
stronger, since as you know, we didn't get accepted last year.

We have our current tasks listed at:
http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/GSoC_Ideas_2016

Like the last two years, they include tasks for ResidualVM.

This year, we'd also like to add tasks for engines for classic RPG games. For
quite some time, there's been interest among ScummVM devs in RPG games, to the
point that there are now serious plans to create a new sister project RogueVM
for RPGs, based on the ScummVM OSystem + backends. That is also where any
outcome of the GSoC tasks would be included.

This would allow us to add several high-profile engines to the task list, which
should greatly increase the attractiveness of our ideas page. Additionally, it
will demonstrate to Google that we are ambitious about growing the community
around ScummVM (where I include ResidualVM and the nascent RogueVM), which is
one of the main goals of the Summer of Code program. In short, I think this
will make our GSoC application significantly stronger. Not adding them has the
risk of making it look very similar (IMO too similar) to our rejected
application from last year.


If there is sufficient support among us for this idea, and we get accepted into
GSoC, and students choose RPG tasks, that will also be a good opportunity for
evaluating after the summer how much interest in RPG games there exists among
our users and developers. If it turns out to be very popular among everyone,
then at that time, we could also revisit the discussion about extending the
scope of ScummVM beyond adventure games. (My own opinion about that is not at
all formed yet.) If not, then this would mean RogueVM would become a separate
sister project like it is planned now.


Summarizing, we think adding RPG tasks with several well-known engines on the
idea list will be a very strong addition to our GSoC application. It will also
provide a good chance to evaluate how popular the idea of RPG engines is with
everyone after the summer.


What do you think? Good idea? Any objections? Other thoughts?


-Willem Jan