Re: Finding a new troubleless name for KSokoban

Am Donnerstag, 25. August 2022, 11:18:56 CEST schrieb Karl Ove Hufthammer:
> Friedrich W. H. Kossebau skreiv 24.08.2022 15:53:
> > So could be KStoreKeeper, KWarehouseKeeper, KWarehouseMan (or some sex-
> > ignoring variant like KWarehousePerson). Among these KStoreKeeper would=
 be
> > my current favourite due to shortage.
>=20
> Hmm, I=E2=80=99m not very fond of prefixing everything with a K. And KDE =
has
> mostly stopped doing this, which I think is a *good* thing. IMHO, more
> natural-sounding names =E2=80=93 like Krita, Okular, Elisa, Parley and Sp=
ectacle
> =E2=80=93 work better. And it=E2=80=99s better if the name *doesn=E2=80=
=99t* start with a K, so
> that the =E2=80=98games=E2=80=99 category isn=E2=80=99t filled up with ga=
mes starting with the
> same letter (we already have KBlocks, KBounce, KBreakOut,
> KFourInKGoldrunner, Kolf, Kollision, KSnakeDuel etc.).

Yes, different people, different opinions, and all based on good reasons.=20
Myself am divided here: I fancy prefix-less names also for style (e.g.=20
developed the name "Okteta" instead of reusing "KHexEdit" when I wrote the=
=20
respective substitute app).
But I also see why one would use "K" + "English descriptive name", it tags =
the=20
KDE brand into the name and also makes English speakers immediately obvious=
=20
what an app is about. Like "KSokoban" is obvious to anyone, a (or the) KDE=
=20
implementation of the game type sokoban. I would never have thought about=20
renaming this if it was not for the legal risk (well, thinking more it is a=
lso=20
a bit about fairness against those still around who drafted the original, w=
e=20
would not like others to reuse or hook up on KDE app names also).
Of course the KName pattern brings the problem what to do with a rival=20
implementation done also inside the KDE community, when the name is taken ;=
)=20
One KMediaPlayer would have blocked all the Amarok, Juk, Kaffeine, Elisa,=20
Dragon, Haruna, KMPlayer, etc from taking that official name :P Unless ther=
e=20
were standards and implementations could simple replace each other, and bei=
ng=20
chosen by quality & feature metrics... *dream*.
And often users are more interested to get something done with a tool than=
=20
interested in just using a tool with a beautiful name? ;)
So, myself would not per se rule out KName. Just my 2 cents on the matter.
=20
> I don=E2=80=99t have any specific suggestions. For me, Skladnik (with a c=
apital
> S, as applications using a lowercase first letter are complicated to
> handle in sentences) is OK.=20

My bad here when first mentioning it. Yes, that proposal is to use "Skladni=
k".=20
So no special casing, also only use of US-ASCII chars [A..Za..z].

> But maybe a bit difficult to pronounce, due
> to the =E2=80=98skl=E2=80=99 sound?

Might depend on people's background. No clue myself about set of sounds tha=
t=20
would work across the world's speakers. Could not find anything on a quick=
=20
search also, but surely missing out respective search terms. The only relat=
ed=20
thing I remembered was designing the name "Kodak", but that also got me=20
nowhere with related information.

> Also, it might be be an idea to base the name on something *other* than
> a warehouse worker. The metadata for the game currently *does* say that
> =E2=80=98you are a warehouse keeper trying to push crates to their proper
> locations in a warehouse=E2=80=99. But when I start the game, I found tha=
t I=E2=80=99m a
> man with no feet pushing human-sized jewels to green manhole covers. And
> it doesn=E2=80=99t take place in a warehouse, but in small brick rooms fl=
oating
> in space. Very confusing! :)

I see. Yes, if one does not know the game type and its original apps' graph=
ics=20
itself before, the semantics used for the name and the game description mak=
e=20
less sense. But I think we should do take into account that the game type=20
itself has a broader community around it, which seem to all be aware of thi=
s=20
game being about the abstracted difficulties of someone shuffling things=20
around in the floor of a warehouse, as also visualized by the original game=
=20
app. And the current graphics material of KSokoban is referring to the=20
original artwork, just used a gem instead of a box (which somewhere was=20
explicitly pointed out as personal touch by the original KSokokan author), =
and=20
used a "space" metaphor image for the void outside the walls, where in the=
=20
original there is just single-color void.
So IMHO we should not cut references that much, instead try to just play=20
around with them. Even more as KSokoban supports loading 3rd-party level=20
datasets made in some externally standardized format. So it is part of a=20
family around the original game :) (I remember there are also 3D versions,=
=20
think Quake-style sokoban, for people with obviously great spatial memory ;=
))

And my long term plan also is to add theming support, so the visual charact=
er=20
of the game experiences might be something more different. See e.g. some th=
eme=20
concept ideas made for Magazynier at its time:
https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-games-devel/2009-October/006473.html

I already locally secured the actual artwork done for the Ant theme at the=
=20
time,=20
https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-games-devel/2010-January/006822.html
Would find it neat if that could be finally brought to use :)

Happy to have this discussion, to reflect some more on things and to explor=
e=20
the naming options.

Cheers
=46riedrich