[Scummvm-devel] GSoC application

Fri Feb 19 20:42:26 CET 2016

Hi all,

I just realised that while I mentioned it to Strangerke on IRC I forgot to reply to this email.
I have not made up my mind yet about extending the ScummVM scope versus having a sister project, so I am not going to delve on that. But proposing RPG-related topics for GSOC seems like a good idea to me (another RPG fan here). The discussions Arnaud had with Googlers seems to indicate this would be well perceived.

Regarding GSoC, although that is probably a bit late for this year, would it make sense to invite other adventure and RPG game reimplementation projects under the ScummVM umbrella? I think inviting other established projects could make our GSoC application stronger, and this would also indicate that our intention is not to compete with existing established RPG projects on their territory but rather work with them (I think the email from Miguel indicates that our plans to extend to RPG could be perceived as such). Note that my question only applies to GSoC and is not a suggestion that those project could or should use our OSystem framework. This is just a suggestion that ScummVM, as an important project in the game engine reimplementation community, and with its history of GSoC participations could help other related projects benefit from GSoC.

Thierry

On 19 Feb 2016, at 13:57, Paul Gilbert <paulfgilbert at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> It's been good to see the positive response so far. As has already been mentioned, ScummVM already has several RPG games supported by the existing engines, and the Wages engine will bring a lot more in. I see explicitly supporting RPGs as a natural evolution of the ScummVM scope. This would give us RPG-fan developers the existing benefits of ScummVM, including peer code reviews, Buildbot, and so on. And we can always set up optional compilation options in case people want an adventure-only or RPG-only build.
> 
> Just as an FYI, in addition to RPG sources that have been sitting around for a while,  I've been working on a reimplementation of Xeen (Clouds/Dark Side/World/Swords) for a while which is mostly playable, as well as a cleanup of AESOP32 (Eye of the Beholder 3 & Dungeon Hack), although that's not so far along. Particularly the lattter, if would be nice having it in ScummVM one day, since we already support the previous two games.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Paul.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 6:19 AM, Filippos Karapetis <bluegr at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello
> 
> Sorry for not replying earlier, I was away on a business trip.
> 
> I am also supporting the notion of expanding towards RPG games. We already have support for some RPG games, which shared code with adventure game engines (Lands of Lore, Eye of the Beholder 1+2, Elvira 1+2, Waxworks, Quest for Glory 1-3, to name a few). Also, a lot of the newly-added WAGE games are RPGs. RPG games also have similar properties as adventure games (like interaction with characters and solving puzzles), although they have more fight-oriented functionality included (skills, stats, weapons, monster fighting etc).
> 
> This is not the same as 2.5D / 3D games: a lot of RPG games were using a 2D engine (like Lands of Lore, for example), so we won't need to perform any significant changes to OSystem itself, like what was done with ResidualVM.
> 
> Thus, I am all for expanding our target games to include RPG games as well, either in a new spinoff project (RogueVM), or as part of ScummVM itself.
> 
> I don't believe that expanding our target will be like shooting ourselves in the foot. A project has a vision, a target and people who are interested in working for that vision. We have developers in ScummVM who have worked for both adventure games and RPG games (wjp, fuzzie, kirben, athrxx, m_kiewitz, dreammaster and myself, to name a few). We also have sources for RPG games, that people can work on.
> 
> So, I believe that adding 2D RPG-oriented engines as a GSoC task could potentially attract more students, who are interested in RPGs, therefore, it's a good move.
> 
> Last but not least, a spinoff project like RogueVM would be nice, but perhaps it would be good if we get to vote in order to expand the scope of ScummVM to also target 2D point'n'click RPG games. There, I said it :)
> 
> Regards
> Filippos
> 
> 
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 2:23 PM, Peter Bozsó <uruk at scummvm.org> wrote:
> Hey all! :)
> 
> First of all I am absolutely for RogueVM and it's branching off of ScummVM. I think it's a great project and a it'd pretty attractive thing for GSoC students.
> I am also volunteering this year as a mentor for this task that I added myself to the list. (Also I'll be only available three days/week and only a couple of hours during those days, so it'd be very good if someone could co-mentor that task besides me!)
> 
> Cheers,
> Peter
> 
> On 18 February 2016 at 07:22, Arnaud Boutonné <strangerke at scummvm.org> wrote:
> To answer to Tobia's remarks
> 
> 2 years ago, we decided to make for the first time a proposal for ResidualVM, with ScummVM vouching their application. Google failed ResidualVM's proposal, and asked us to turn ScummVM into a GSoC umbrella and take them on our side. We did that, and it worked really well.
> 
> Last year, at Fosdem, I talked to Googlers who said it was the good way to proceed and ... we were failed nevertheless, but our application and structure wasn't pointed as a reason of this failure.
> 
> This year, we talked again to Googlers at Fosdem, and they encouraged us to keep working in the same direction, and to be ambitious in order to be outstanding.
> What we are proposing this year is a wider umbrella (with a small growth, under control), which is something that Google encourages. We are also proposing a coherent growth, involving some team members.
> And finally we could be proposing to students nothing less than being at the origin of something different, which could be helpful to keep them in the community afterwards.
> 
> All in all, with that approach, I think this would increase our chances to be accepted.
> 
> Best regards,
> Arnaud
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 1:31 AM, D G Turner <d.g.turner at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Miguel,
>   Thanks for the point, but there is significant overlap between the
>   ScummVM and GemRB developers, including wjp who raised this
>   question so we are aware of it and would mainly be talking to
>   ourselves :)
> 
>   GemRB is intended to reimplement the Bioware Infinity Engine and
>   thus is not really applicable to other RPGs which have vastly
>   differing internal engine designs.
> 
>   While it is possible that the GemRB could be integrated in future
>   as an engine within RogueVM / ScummVM, this doesn't really have any
>   bearing on the current point at hand.
> Thanks,
> David Turner
> 
> P.S. A general +1 from me to merging the RogueVM and other RPG engines
>      into ScummVM.
> 
> On 17/02/16 23:47, Miguel de Dios Matias wrote:
> > Don't reinvent the wheel.
> >
> > There is a engine reimplementation of popular RPGs such as Baldurs
> > Gate I and II. It is a mature project but it is growing slow.
> >
> > https://github.com/gemrb/gemrb
> >
> > is not it better a meeting with the people of GemRB for to merge into ScummVM?
> >
> > Regards.
> 
> 
> 
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