There is a thread in freegamedev.net which I have been following for the past few weeks.
In the back-and-forth argument, there I believe most of the arguments shared were somewhat wrong.
While we have AAA projects like 0ad and others, the mainstay of our games should be ones which doesn’t need any high-quality textures and still does the work.
I have been looking at a Let’s play playlist of an indie gem called ‘Dead in Vinland’
Youtube playlist link – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8eo1fAeRpyl47_TRuQrtkBn2bNRaZtlT
If you look at the game, it doesn’t have much in terms of animation apart from bits of role-playing in encounters but is more oriented towards towards roll of dice.
The characters in the game are sort of cut-out characters very much like the cut-out cardboard/paperboard characters that we used to play while as children.
Where the game innovates is more in terms of an expansive dialog-tree and at the most 100-200 images of the characters. It basically has a group of 4 permanent characters, any one of them dies and the gamer is defeated.
If anybody has played rogue or any of the games in the new debian games-rogue tasks they would know that foss shows variety of stories even in the rpg world.
$ aptitude show games-rogue
Package: games-rogue
Version: 2.3
State: installed
Automatically installed: no
Priority: optional
Section: metapackages
Maintainer: Debian Games Team
Architecture: all
Uncompressed Size: 24.6 k
Depends: games-tasks (= 2.3)
Recommends: allure, angband, crawl, gearhead, gearhead2, hearse, hyperrogue, lambdahack, meritous, moria, nethack-x11, omega-rpg, slashem
Description: Debian's roguelike games
This metapackage will install dungeon crawling games in the spirit of Rogue.
Homepage: https://blends.debian.org/games/tasks/
I took rpg those are the kind of games I have liked always and even in that turn-based rpg’s although do hate the fact that I can’t save scum as in most traditional rpg’s.
Variety and Palapeli
I now turn my attention to a package called variety.
While looking at it, also pushed a wishlist bug for packaging the new version which would fix a bug I reported about a month back. It was in the same conversation that I came to know that the upstream releaser and the downstream maintainer is one and the same.
I have also been talking with upstream about various features or what could be done to make variety better.
Now while that’s all well and good and variety does a good job of being a wallpaper changer, I need and want the wallpapers which is the output of variety to be the input of palapeli BUT without having to do lots of manual intervention as it currently requires. Variety does a pretty good job of giving good quality wallpapers and goes beyond in even giving pretty much info. on the images as it saves the metadata of the images unlike many online image services. To make things easier for myself. I made a directory called Variety in Pictures and copied everything from ~/.config/variety/Favorites by doing –
~/.config/variety/Favorites$ cp -r --preserve . /home/shirish/Pictures/Variety/
And this method works out fine enough. The –preserve hook is essential as can be seen from the cp manpage –
--preserve[=ATTR_LIST]
preserve the specified attributes (default: mode,ownership,timestamps), if possible additional
attributes: context, links, xattr, all
Even the metadata of the image is pretty good enough as can be seen from any random picture –
~/Pictures/Variety$ exiftool 7527881664_024e44f8bf_o.jpg
ExifTool Version Number : 10.96
File Name : 7527881664_024e44f8bf_o.jpg
Directory : .
File Size : 1175 kB
File Modification Date/Time : 2018:04:09 03:56:15+05:30
File Access Date/Time : 2018:05:14 22:59:22+05:30
File Inode Change Date/Time : 2018:05:15 08:01:42+05:30
File Permissions : rw-r--r--
File Type : JPEG
File Type Extension : jpg
MIME Type : image/jpeg
Exif Byte Order : Little-endian (Intel, II)
Image Description :
Make : Canon
Camera Model Name : Canon EOS 5D
X Resolution : 240
Y Resolution : 240
Resolution Unit : inches
Software : Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.6 (Windows)
Modify Date : 2012:07:08 17:58:13
Artist : Peter Levi
Copyright : Peter Levi
Exposure Time : 1/50
F Number : 7.1
Exposure Program : Aperture-priority AE
ISO : 160
Exif Version : 0230
Date/Time Original : 2011:05:03 12:17:50
Create Date : 2011:05:03 12:17:50
Shutter Speed Value : 1/50
Aperture Value : 7.1
Exposure Compensation : 0
Max Aperture Value : 4.0
Metering Mode : Multi-segment
Flash : Off, Did not fire
Focal Length : 45.0 mm
User Comment :
Focal Plane X Resolution : 3086.925795
Focal Plane Y Resolution : 3091.295117
Focal Plane Resolution Unit : inches
Custom Rendered : Normal
Exposure Mode : Auto
White Balance : Auto
Scene Capture Type : Standard
Owner Name : Tsvetan ROUSTCHEV
Serial Number : 1020707385
Lens Info : 24-105mm f/?
Lens Model : EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM
XP Comment :
Compression : JPEG (old-style)
Thumbnail Offset : 908
Thumbnail Length : 18291
XMP Toolkit : XMP Core 4.4.0-Exiv2
Creator Tool : Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.6 (Windows)
Metadata Date : 2012:07:08 17:58:13+03:00
Lens : EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM
Image Number : 1
Flash Compensation : 0
Firmware : 1.1.1
Format : image/jpeg
Version : 6.6
Process Version : 5.7
Color Temperature : 4250
Tint : +8
Exposure : 0.00
Shadows : 2
Brightness : +65
Contrast : +28
Sharpness : 25
Luminance Smoothing : 0
Color Noise Reduction : 25
Chromatic Aberration R : 0
Chromatic Aberration B : 0
Vignette Amount : 0
Shadow Tint : 0
Red Hue : 0
Red Saturation : 0
Green Hue : 0
Green Saturation : 0
Blue Hue : 0
Blue Saturation : 0
Fill Light : 0
Highlight Recovery : 23
Clarity : 0
Defringe : 0
Gray Mixer Red : -8
Gray Mixer Orange : -17
Gray Mixer Yellow : -21
Gray Mixer Green : -25
Gray Mixer Aqua : -19
Gray Mixer Blue : +8
Gray Mixer Purple : +15
Gray Mixer Magenta : +4
Split Toning Shadow Hue : 0
Split Toning Shadow Saturation : 0
Split Toning Highlight Hue : 0
Split Toning Highlight Saturation: 0
Split Toning Balance : 0
Parametric Shadows : 0
Parametric Darks : 0
Parametric Lights : 0
Parametric Highlights : 0
Parametric Shadow Split : 25
Parametric Midtone Split : 50
Parametric Highlight Split : 75
Sharpen Radius : +1.0
Sharpen Detail : 25
Sharpen Edge Masking : 0
Post Crop Vignette Amount : 0
Grain Amount : 0
Color Noise Reduction Detail : 50
Lens Profile Enable : 1
Lens Manual Distortion Amount : 0
Perspective Vertical : 0
Perspective Horizontal : 0
Perspective Rotate : 0.0
Perspective Scale : 100
Convert To Grayscale : True
Tone Curve Name : Medium Contrast
Camera Profile : Adobe Standard
Camera Profile Digest : 9C14C254921581D1141CA0E5A77A9D11
Lens Profile Setup : LensDefaults
Lens Profile Name : Adobe (Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM)
Lens Profile Filename : Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III (Canon EF 24-105mm f4 L IS USM) - RAW.lcp
Lens Profile Digest : 0387279C5E7139287596C051056DCFAF
Lens Profile Distortion Scale : 100
Lens Profile Chromatic Aberration Scale: 100
Lens Profile Vignetting Scale : 100
Has Settings : True
Has Crop : False
Already Applied : True
Document ID : xmp.did:8DBF8F430DC9E11185FD94228EB274CE
Instance ID : xmp.iid:8DBF8F430DC9E11185FD94228EB274CE
Original Document ID : xmp.did:8DBF8F430DC9E11185FD94228EB274CE
Source URL : https://www.flickr.com/photos/93647178@N00/7527881664
Source Type : flickr
Author : peter-levi
Source Name : Flickr
Image URL : https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8154/7527881664_024e44f8bf_o.jpg
Author URL : https://www.flickr.com/photos/93647178@N00
Source Location : user:www.flickr.com/photos/peter-levi/;user_id:93647178@N00;
Creator : Peter Levi
Rights : Peter Levi
Subject : paris, france, lyon, lyonne
Tone Curve : 0, 0, 32, 22, 64, 56, 128, 128, 192, 196, 255, 255
History Action : derived, saved
History Parameters : converted from image/x-canon-cr2 to image/jpeg, saved to new location
History Instance ID : xmp.iid:8DBF8F430DC9E11185FD94228EB274CE
History When : 2012:07:08 17:58:13+03:00
History Software Agent : Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.6 (Windows)
History Changed : /
Derived From :
Displayed Units X : inches
Displayed Units Y : inches
Current IPTC Digest : 044f85a540ebb92b9514cab691a3992d
Coded Character Set : UTF8
Application Record Version : 4
Date Created : 2011:05:03
Time Created : 12:17:50+03:00
Digital Creation Date : 2011:05:03
Digital Creation Time : 12:17:50+03:00
By-line : Peter Levi
Copyright Notice : Peter Levi
Headline : IMG_0779
Keywords : paris, france, lyon, lyonne
Caption-Abstract :
Photoshop Thumbnail : (Binary data 18291 bytes, use -b option to extract)
IPTC Digest : d8a6ddc0b5eacb05874d4b676f4cb439
Profile CMM Type : Linotronic
Profile Version : 2.1.0
Profile Class : Display Device Profile
Color Space Data : RGB
Profile Connection Space : XYZ
Profile Date Time : 1998:02:09 06:49:00
Profile File Signature : acsp
Primary Platform : Microsoft Corporation
CMM Flags : Not Embedded, Independent
Device Manufacturer : Hewlett-Packard
Device Model : sRGB
Device Attributes : Reflective, Glossy, Positive, Color
Rendering Intent : Perceptual
Connection Space Illuminant : 0.9642 1 0.82491
Profile Creator : Hewlett-Packard
Profile ID : 0
Profile Copyright : Copyright (c) 1998 Hewlett-Packard Company
Profile Description : sRGB IEC61966-2.1
Media White Point : 0.95045 1 1.08905
Media Black Point : 0 0 0
Red Matrix Column : 0.43607 0.22249 0.01392
Green Matrix Column : 0.38515 0.71687 0.09708
Blue Matrix Column : 0.14307 0.06061 0.7141
Device Mfg Desc : IEC http://www.iec.ch
Device Model Desc : IEC 61966-2.1 Default RGB colour space - sRGB
Viewing Cond Desc : Reference Viewing Condition in IEC61966-2.1
Viewing Cond Illuminant : 19.6445 20.3718 16.8089
Viewing Cond Surround : 3.92889 4.07439 3.36179
Viewing Cond Illuminant Type : D50
Luminance : 76.03647 80 87.12462
Measurement Observer : CIE 1931
Measurement Backing : 0 0 0
Measurement Geometry : Unknown
Measurement Flare : 0.999%
Measurement Illuminant : D65
Technology : Cathode Ray Tube Display
Red Tone Reproduction Curve : (Binary data 2060 bytes, use -b option to extract)
Green Tone Reproduction Curve : (Binary data 2060 bytes, use -b option to extract)
Blue Tone Reproduction Curve : (Binary data 2060 bytes, use -b option to extract)
DCT Encode Version : 100
APP14 Flags 0 : [14]
APP14 Flags 1 : (none)
Color Transform : YCbCr
Image Width : 1920
Image Height : 1280
Encoding Process : Baseline DCT, Huffman coding
Bits Per Sample : 8
Color Components : 3
Y Cb Cr Sub Sampling : YCbCr4:4:4 (1 1)
Aperture : 7.1
Date/Time Created : 2011:05:03 12:17:50+03:00
Digital Creation Date/Time : 2011:05:03 12:17:50+03:00
Image Size : 1920x1280
Megapixels : 2.5
Scale Factor To 35 mm Equivalent: 1.0
Shutter Speed : 1/50
Thumbnail Image : (Binary data 18291 bytes, use -b option to extract)
Circle Of Confusion : 0.030 mm
Field Of View : 43.5 deg
Focal Length : 45.0 mm (35 mm equivalent: 45.1 mm)
Hyperfocal Distance : 9.51 m
Lens ID : Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM
Light Value : 10.6
One of the things I found wanting, now I dunno whether a field for CC-SA 3.0 (Creative Commons – Share Alike 3.0) . It does have everything else to know how a particular picture is/was taken.
I use the images I found as input in palapeli.
$ aptitude show palapeli
Package: palapeli
Version: 4:17.12.2-1
State: installed
Automatically installed: no
Priority: optional
Section: games
Maintainer: Debian/Kubuntu Qt/KDE Maintainers
Architecture: amd64
Uncompressed Size: 1,138 k
Depends: palapeli-data (>= 4:17.12.2-1), kio, libc6 (>= 2.14), libkf5archive5 (>= 4.96.0), libkf5completion5 (>= 4.97.0), libkf5configcore5 (>= 4.98.0), libkf5configgui5 (>= 4.97.0), libkf5configwidgets5 (>= 4.96.0), libkf5coreaddons5(>= 4.100.0), libkf5crash5 (>= 5.15.0), libkf5i18n5 (>= 4.97.0), libkf5itemviews5 (>= 4.96.0), libkf5kiowidgets5(>= 4.99.0), libkf5notifications5 (>= 4.96.0), libkf5service-bin, libkf5service5 (>= 4.99.0), libkf5widgetsaddons5 (>= 4.96.0), libkf5xmlgui5 (>= 4.98.0), libqt5core5a (>= 5.9.0~beta), libqt5gui5 (>=5.8.0), libqt5svg5 (>= 5.6.0~beta), libqt5widgets5 (>= 5.7.0~), libstdc++6 (>= 4.4.0)
Recommends: khelpcenter, qhull-bin
Description: jigsaw puzzle game
Palapeli is a jigsaw puzzle game. Unlike other games in that genre, you are not limited to aligning pieces on imaginary
grids. The pieces are freely moveable.
Palapeli is the Finnish word for jigsaw puzzle.
This package is part of the KDE games module.
Now to make a new puzzle for palapeli, it needs 3 info. at the very least,
a. The name of the image. For many images you need to make one up as many a times either photographers are either not imaginative or do not have the time to give meaningful descriptive name. I have had an interesting discussion on a similar topic with the authors of palapeli. There are lots to do that in getting descriptions right. At least in free software I dunno of any way to get images processed so that descriptions can be told/found out.
b. A comment – This is optional but if you have a memorable image that you have captured, this is the best way to do it. I hate to bring bing wallapers but have seen they have some of the best description for what I’m trying to say –
shirish@debian:~/Pictures/Variety$ exiftool ManateeMom_EN-US9983570199_1920x1080.jpg | grep Caption-Abstract
Caption-Abstract : West Indian manatee mom and baby at Three Sisters Springs, Florida (© James R.D. Scott/Getty Images)
shirish@debian:~/Pictures/Variety$ exiftool ManateeMom_EN-US9983570199_1920x1080.jpg | grep Comment
User Comment : West Indian manatee mom and baby at Three Sisters Springs, Florida (© James R.D. Scott/Getty Images)
XP Comment :
Comment : West Indian manatee mom and baby at Three Sisters Springs, Florida (© James R.D. Scott/Getty Images)
c. Name of the Author – Many a time I just write either ‘nameless’ or ‘unknown’ as the author hasn’t taken any pains to share who they are.
Why I have shared or talked about palapeli as they are the only ones I know of who has done some extensive works on getting unique slicers so that the shapes of the puzzle piece come all different. But it’s still a trial and error method as it doesn’t have a preview mode.
While there’s lot that could be improved in both the above projects, I would be happy just if atm there would be a script which can take the images as an input, add or fib details (although best would be to have actual details) and do the work.
I am sure if I put my mind to it, I’ll probably find ways in which even exiftool can be improved but can’t thank enough the people who have made such a wonderful tool.
For instance, while looking at the metadata of quite a few pictures, found that many people use arbitrary fields to tell where the picture was shot at, some use headline, some use comment or Description while others use subject. If somebody wanted to write a script it would be difficult as there may be images which may have all the 3 fields and have different content on them (possibly) under context known by the author only.
The good thing is we have got the latest version on Debian testing –
$ exiftool -ver
10.96
Peace out.