Re: How to best collaborate with games and junior tasks

Markus Koschany <[email protected]> Tue, 19 Aug 2014 13:52:12 +0200
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.custom,gmane.linux.debian.devel.jr,gmane.linux.debian.devel.games
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Hi Per!

On 18.08.2014 23:38, Per Andersson wrote:
[...]

> There might also be a slight difference in taxonomy, e.g.
> where should multiplayer network games that run on console
> be placed junior-net or junior-text (or both)?

I'm well aware of debian-junior. Thanks for bringing this topic up for
discussion. Actually I have already tried to avoid duplicating your
effort and left out a few games on purpose because I thought that people
who are looking for games for children will most likely find debian-junior.

There are some tasks in debian-games that are rather big and seem rather
unspecific on first glance, e.g. arcade or the puzzle task. In fact
those tasks contain all games someone would probably find in some Debian
or FreeDesktop menu under the same name. So those tasks are for people
who want simply all games from one specific category.

»games-tetris« and the not yet released »games-mindesweeper« are a
subset of »games-puzzle« and more interesting for people who are looking
for a specific type of game.

Now let me get back to your question. If a game is suitable for network
gaming and also a console game, it makes perfectly sense to include it
in both tasks in my opinion. The question is rather whether parents
really choose games for their children based on features like single- or
multiplayer mode or rather because they think that they are suitable for
3-6 year old or 7-12 year old children or if they involve action (and
possibly violence) or if they challenge their children's ability to
solve a logic task.

[...]

> Any bright ideas on how we can join in an effort to cooperate
> between junior-games and games tasks?
> 
> In some areas it is quite easy, e.g. junior-puzzle could depend
> on games-tetris, instead of listing a subset of the tetris games
> manually.
> 
> In contrast, games-puzzle probably lists to many puzzle games
> to be relevant for junior-puzzle.
> 
> 
> Ideas (and help) welcome!

1.

We could develop special tasks for children and maintain those packages
within the Debian Games Blend and you could simply depend on those
packages. The downside is that they won't show up in your web sentinel
for now as Andreas has already pointed out.

2.

We could concentrate on debian-junior and overhaul the games tasks.
Personally I think that debian-junior should contain tasks like
junior-games-teenager or junior-games-small-children. Then you could
create metapackages with games from different categories dedicated to
certain peer groups. Probably I would drop -net, -gl or arcade in favor
of those tasks.

To sum up my trail of thought here: I believe debian-games should focus
on game types and technical aspects of game development whereas
debian-junior should consider social aspects as well. I'm happy to help
you with creating such packages be it for debian-games or debian-junior.

Regards,

Markus
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