cvs.zerfleddert.de Git - micropolis/blob - src/PLAN.txt

   1 Plan for developing Micropolis for OLPC.
   2
   3 First, 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
  33 Replace 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 --
 240 Micropolis, Unix Version.  This game was released for the Unix platform
 241 in or about 1990 and has been modified for inclusion in the One Laptop
 242 Per Child program.  Copyright (C) 1989 - 2007 Electronic Arts Inc.  If
 243 you need assistance with this program, you may contact:
 244   http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Micropolis  or email  micropolis@laptop.org.
 245
 246 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 247 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 248 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at
 249 your option) any later version.
 250
 251 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
 252 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 253 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
 254 General Public License for more details.  You should have received a
 255 copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program.  If
 256 not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 257
 258             ADDITIONAL TERMS per GNU GPL Section 7
 259
 260 No trademark or publicity rights are granted.  This license does NOT
 261 give you any right, title or interest in the trademark SimCity or any
 262 other Electronic Arts trademark.  You may not distribute any
 263 modification of this program using the trademark SimCity or claim any
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 265
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 268
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