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1Plan for developing Micropolis for OLPC.
2
3First, get it running on the current OLPC platform.
4
5 DONE:
6
7 Screen depth and size: fixed size of OLPC screen.
8 Window management: one window.
9 Simplify window management. Single map and editor view. Tiled graph and evaluation windows.
10 Rearrange startup screen so it works in the full window mode.
11 Make budget window and file dialogs be transient popup windows.
12 Add "Enable/Disable Auto Budget" button to budget window.
13 Click on small R/C/I gauge to toggle evaluation window.
14 Click on small graph to toggle graph window.
15 Click on funds or tax rate to show budget window.
16 Disable multi player features by default (added -m flag to enable multi player mode).
17 Disable other experimental features (cellular automata, dynamic query, etc).
18 Add -S flag to enable Sugar features, and TCL access to test flag.
19 Enable audio: Use Sugar audio server.
20 Convert sounds to new audio format (currently wav).
21
22 Fix fonts.
23 Pick nice Sugar fonts to use, based on Sugar flag.
24
25 TODO:
26 Update manual and documentation.
27
28 Make Sugar activity wrapper in Python.
29
30 Put new graphics and icons into interface and menus.
31
32
33Replace TCL/Tk with Python/GTK, and use Pango/Cairo for graphics.
34 Implement custom Tk components in GTK.
35 Map view.
36 Editor view.
37 Date view.
38 Graph view.
39 Pie menus.
40 Cellular Automata Machine view.
41
42 Integrate with Sugar and OLPC hardware.
43 Audio.
44 Support CSound audio mixer.
45 Switch to a smaller audio format.
46 Record better sounds.
47 Internationalization.
48 Graphics.
49 Hires monochrome.
50 SVG graphics and icons.
51 Create better icons.
52 Sugar integration.
53 Integrate with OLPC activity system, window manager, etc.
54 Rework user interface to follow Sugar user interface guidelines.
55 Keyboard control.
56 Support OLPC keyboard layout and device buttons.
57 Game keypad interface for book mode.
58 Optimization.
59 Optimize power management.
60 Optimize size.
61 Optimize speed.
62 Documentation.
63 Integrated help, tutorials, essays on city design from manual, etc.
64 Voiceovers, demos, journal playback.
65 Courseware.
66 Map annotation.
67 Journaling.
68 Event history.
69 Edit history.
70 Checkpointing.
71 Branching histories.
72 Rewinding and fast forwarding.
73 Publishing newspaper articles linking to save files.
74 URL to link into a city at a particular location on the map.
75 Grid networking.
76 Multi player stupport.
77 Sharing cities.
78 Colaborative editing.
79 Voting.
80 Chat.
81 White board.
82 Educational.
83 Bring old Micropolis courseware up to date, and integrate with the game.
84 Export simulation data to spreadsheet or xml.
85 Creative writing, storytelling, newspaper reporting, blogging, etc.
86 Scenarios and experiments.
87 What-if?
88 Branching history at decision point, and comparing different results.
89 Scripting.
90 Open up the simulator to Python.
91 Web services to remotely monitor and control simulation.
92 HTML or AJAX web server remote control interface.
93 Support multi player interactions through web server.
94 Submit a proposal to build a stadium over the web.
95 Style it like a real civic government web page, that allows citizens to participate online.
96 Enable extending the graphics, tiles, sprites.
97 Enable programming behaviors, defining new zones, new global variables, overlays, etc.
98 Cellular automata.
99 Visual programming.
100 Programming by example.
101 KidSim, AgentSheets.
102
103 Visual Programming
104
105 Simplify the Micropolis interface and make it easier for kids to
106 use it with the game controller, in a way that will support
107 multi player interaction.
108
109 Collapse the separate concepts of game editing tool (bulldozer,
110 road, residential zone, etc) and agent (sprites like the
111 monster, tornado, helicopter, train, etc).
112
113 Agents with specialized tool represent different roles that kids
114 can play. A bunch of kids can join together and play different
115 roles at the same time in the same city. Instead of having a
116 bunch of editing tools to switch between, you have a bunch of
117 different agents you can drive around the map, like using a
118 monster to crush things instead of a bulldozer, or riding around
119 in a helicopter to scroll around and observe the map. Make a
120 meta-game like pokemon trading cards or magic the gathering,
121 about acquiring and deploying and using agents on the map. Give
122 agents different budgets and constraints.
123
124 Use an agent to represent a user in the world, and control an
125 editing tool. You see other users in the map driving around
126 their editing tool agents.
127
128 Each editing tool can be associated with a particular agent,
129 with a keyboard/game controller based user interface for moving
130 around, as well as a mouse based interface for picking it up and
131 dragging it around.
132
133 The road tool becomes a road building vehicle, that you can
134 easily move up/down/left/right/diagonally with the game
135 controller directional input. Requires much less coordination to
136 draw straight roads than with a mouse.
137
138 The bulldozer tool becomes an actual bulldozer that you can
139 drive around the map, crushing things in your wake.
140
141 This makes the game easily usable by little kids in book mode.
142
143 Also support small children using Micropolis like a drawing tool or
144 etch-a-sketch, simply doodling with the editing tools for the
145 visceral pleasure of it, and setting fires and other disasters
146 to watch it burn and mutate.
147
148 Logo Turtles (as a generalization of the monster, tornado,
149 helicopter, etc)
150
151 Implement programmable logo turtles as agents that can move
152 around on the map, sense it, and edit it.
153
154 Like Robot Odyssey agents, so you can go "inside" an agent,
155 and travel around with it, operate its controls, read its
156 sensors, and automate its behvior by wiring up visual programs
157 with logic and math and nested "ic chip" components.
158
159 Plug in graphics to represent the agent: use classic logo
160 turtle and Micropolis sprites, but also allow kids to plug in
161 their own.
162 Micropolis sprites have 8 rotations.
163 SVG or Cairo drawings can be rotated continuously.
164
165 Re-implement the classic Micropolis agents like the monster,
166 tornado, helicopter, train, etc in terms of logo turtles, that
167 kids can drive around, learn to use, open up and modify (by
168 turning internal tuning knobs, or even rewiring).
169
170 Let kids reprogram the agents to do all kinds of other stuff.
171
172 Mobile robots, that you can double click to open up into
173 Robot-Odyssey-esque visual program editors.
174
175 Agents have local cellular-automata-like sensors to read
176 information about the current and surrounding tiles.
177
178 KidSim / Cocoa / StageCraft Creator let kids define visual
179 cellular automata rules by example, based on tile patterns and
180 rules. Show it a pattern that you want to match by selecting
181 an instance of that pattern in the world, then abstract it
182 with wildcards if necessary, then demonstrate the result you
183 want it to change the cell to in the next generation.
184
185 Sense high level information about zones and overlays, so the
186 agents can base their behavior on any aspect of the world
187 model.
188
189 Support an extensible model by allowing users to add more
190 layers.
191
192 Add layers with arbitrary names and data types at
193 different resolutions:
194
195 byte, int, float, n-dimensional vector, color, boolean
196 mask, musical note, dict, parametric field (i.e. perlin
197 noise or other mathematical function) at each cell, etc.
198
199 Edit the world.
200
201 All Micropolis editing tools (including colored pens that draw
202 on overlays) should be available to the agent.
203
204 Enable users to plug in their own editing tools, that they
205 can use themselves with the mouse, keyboard or game
206 controller, or program agents to use to edit the map under
207 program control.
208
209 Robot Odyssey
210
211 Build your own universal programmable editing tool.
212 Roll your own von Neuman Universal Constructor.
213 Smart robots you program to perform special purpose editing tasks.
214
215 The "Painter" picture editing program had a way of recording
216 and playing back high level editing commands, relative to the
217 current cursor position.
218
219 Remixing. Journaling. Programming by demonstration or example.
220 You could use a tape recorder to record a bunch of Micropolis
221 editing commands that you act out (or you can just select them
222 from the journal), then you can play those tapes back with
223 relative coordinates, so they apply relative to where the
224 agent currently is on the map. You can copy and paste and cut
225 and splice any editing commands into tapes that you can use to
226 program the robot to play back in arbitrary sequences.
227
228 Program an urban sprawl development-bot to lay out entire
229 residential subdivisions, complete with zones, roads, parks and
230 wires. Then program a luddite roomba-bot that sucks them all
231 up and plants trees in their place.
232
233 This becomes really fun when we let players plug in their own
234 programmed zones for the robot to lay out, and layers of data
235 to control the robot's behavior, out of which they can program
236 their own cellular automata rules and games (like KidSim /
237 Cocoa / StageCraft Creator).
238
239--
240Micropolis, Unix Version. This game was released for the Unix platform
241in or about 1990 and has been modified for inclusion in the One Laptop
242Per Child program. Copyright (C) 1989 - 2007 Electronic Arts Inc. If
243you need assistance with this program, you may contact:
244 http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Micropolis or email micropolis@laptop.org.
245
246This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
247it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
248the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at
249your option) any later version.
250
251This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
252WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
253MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
254General Public License for more details. You should have received a
255copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If
256not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
257
258 ADDITIONAL TERMS per GNU GPL Section 7
259
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264affliation or association with Electronic Arts Inc. or its employees.
265
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268
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