Hi Jim, Well, I have nothing but absolute respect for BGT as a comercial game development tool, but there are a few reasons why I personally wouldn't choose it for an open source project like this. Some reasons are personal, but the main reason has to do with the spirit of the open source movement in the first place.
First of all, when an open source developer decides to create something as open source usually he or she decides to use a language and development tools that are an open standard among software developers. If he/she is a C++ developer they might use C++ with the gcc/g++ compilers. If he/she is a Java developer they might use the free tools from Sun or the new Open Java JDK. If he/she is a .Net developer they'll pick something like Monodevelop over Visual C# just because it is free and cross-platform. What all of these languages and tools have in common is they are 100% free, open source, and cross-platform as well. That's what the spirit of open source is all about. With BGT it is a closed source, comertial product, designed for free or comertial games. Its primary drawback is in demo mode you can write code, run it from source,but you can't compile and redistribute anything until you pay $29.00 for the BGT Light version. That's not bad, financially speaking, but it defeats the purpose of a totally free and open standard everyone can use without extra expense. That's why it isn't really for open source developers. Second of all, is this issue over single-platform verses multi-platform development. Someone who is a die-hard Windows user probably won't care if the software is a single-platform or multi-platform application as long as his/her platform, Windows, is supported. However, for those of us who choose not to use Windows and have chosen to use Mac OS, Linux, and so on we feel this general snubbing of non-Windows platforms is both unfair and unnecessary given the fact that more and more cross-platform tools and languages are being developed to handle this problem. So for us it is a big issue. As a result most open source developers do there best to use a fully open standard that allows the software to be recompiled or ported to other operating systems with relative ease. For example, take Mozilla Firefox. Over the last few years it has shot up in popularity, and is now rated by many reputable computer experts to be the leading web browser on the market today. There are two very important reasons why. One, it is open source so that anyone who has an idea how to improve the product can submit source code, patches, upgrades, etc giving it a huge developer base that Microsoft simply doesn't have. Two, it is supported on several operating systems and platforms such as Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, etc. As a result instead of just targeting one single platform and group of users it pretty much covers them all with a single uniform product that works exactly the same for each and every target platform and group. As someone who uses Firefox both on Windows 7 and Ubuntu Linux 10 I rather like having the ability to use the same exact application in both environments. With a game like this wrestling game we were talking about a text application kind of like Piledriver or Wrestling League Manager. Something like that is easy to port from Windows to Linux or Windows to Mac because all we are dealing with is straight text input/output rather than platform specific graphical user interfaces like Win32, GTK+, or coaco. If we want sounds there are cross-platform libraries like OpenAL which would do the job nicely. I just don't see any need to tie the game to any specific platform by using a tool like BGT just because it might be easier to use. As I said earlier BGT is nice, but it goes against the spirit of open source. With open source the general idea is you write the source code, make it available to the public, and then they can do what they want with it. They can build a version for their Apple IPhone, recompile it for Mac OS, I can compile a copy for Linux, Windows users can compile a version for Windows, and everybody is happy. There is no complaint of this or that platform or group of users being ignored or snubbed. Finally, there is the target group itself. You know, up until now I've focussed mainly on accessible audio games. This is a little different. By being text-based it could become a mainstream product. I.E. someone sighted might choose to play it the way many sighted players play text-based games like the PK Girl, Zork, etc. Although, killer graphics etc seems to be the norm as far as mainstream public goes I know many sighted people who still like text games too. So we might find out this game has a bigger player base than something like Mysteries of the Ancients that was only designed specifically for a blind target group. So I don't know if tying it to a blind specific product like BGT is a good idea with that in mind. Smile. On 4/7/11, Jim Kitchen <j...@kitchensinc.net> wrote: > Hi Thomas, > > Today if one is going to write an open source blind accessible game maybe it > should use the most popular easy to use available tool. I'm thinking that > would be BGT. You know personally I am into VB6, but that is not so easy to > find. I have not looked at BGT myself because I have always used Basic, but > BGT sounds like a good choice for a community project. > > BFN > > Jim > > When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a > nail. > > j...@kitchensinc.net > http://www.kitchensinc.net > (440) 286-6920 > Chardon Ohio USA > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
