User:Kelpy

This page is related to Summer of Code 2013

See the list of Summer of Code 2013 Ideas

This is a Summer of Code 2013 student page

Caution

This proposal is under construction and can be modified any time.

Description

Forrest Keppler - undecided

TODO: Write a small (1-4 sentences) description of your proposal here.

TODO: Add more first-level sections to detail your proposal

IRC

kelpy

Questionnaire

1) Basics

1.1) Write a small introduction to yourself.

Im Forrest. Im a dancer, avid Game Master for various roleplaying games, Linux user and tweaker, College Student, and (hopefully) soon-to-be-developer. Ive been interested in open-source stuff ever since I read my very first "what is Linux?" FAQ and have been looking for a chance to get involved ever since.

1.2) State your preferred email address.

kelpycreek@gmail.com

1.3) If you have chosen a nick for IRC and Wesnoth forums, what is it?

kelpy

1.4) Why do you want to participate in summer of code?

To be honest, Google Summer of Code is something like a dream come true for me. Like I said before, Ive always been interested in joining an open source project and also find myself in need of a job this summer; so the concept of getting paid to work full time on an open source project gets me pretty psyched.

1.5) What are you studying, subject, level and school?

currently studying Computer Science at Western Washington University. list of classes Ive taken above intro: Linear Data Structures Data Structures Object Oriented Design database programming functional algorithm analysis cyber defense

1.6) What country are you from, at what time are you most likely to be able to join IRC?

United States. any times from 7:00 PM to 8:00AM GMT.

1.7) Do you have other commitments for the summer period ? Do you plan to take any vacations ? If yes, when.

Ill be waiting for school to start back up again, so to be honest I wont have much of ANYthing else to do.

2) Experience

2.1) What programs/software have you worked on before?

I have never developed for an actual program before. Ive done lots of tinkering with things, but nothing serious.

2.2) Have you developed software in a team environment before? (As opposed to hacking on something on your own)

nope. Sounds exciting.

2.3) Have you participated to the Google Summer of Code before? As a mentor or a student? In what project? Were you successful? If not, why?

have not participated before.

2.4) Are you already involved with any open source development projects? If yes, please describe the project and the scope of your involvement.

nope.

2.5) Gaming experience - Are you a gamer?

yes. the majority of my showers are dedicated to thinking about games and game design.

2.5.1) What type of gamer are you?

A designer. Most of my favorite roles in games are those that involve inventing new strategies, adding rules, or managing play. Im most frequently the game master for a roleplaying game, a tactician for a MOBA, or an experimenter with social games.

2.5.2) What type of games?

I enjoy any game so long as its well designed. video games: Im an active MOBA player, love DOTA and League of Legends. Im particularly drawn to Strategy games, especially turn based ones, although I'm typically dissapointed with the execution of them. (Wesnoth has been a pleasant exception) My favorite video game would have to be one of the Fire Emblem Franchise. I play rogue-like games at every chance I get (Xcomm is currently one of my favorites)

non video-games:

Card games, especially ones with a rules structures that change have always been a love of mine. a few of my favorites include the Dominion series and Mao with the right group of people. Magic the Gathering also deserves special mention.

Role-playing games I love to a point of almost spiritual reverence. Dungeons and Dragons, in any of its forms, is the perfect mix of a rule-based adjudication system and interactive story.

Board games: I tend to shy away from board games that dont have multiple involved strategies or counterplay. games like chess and go are right up my alley whereas games like quelf or apples to apples tend not to be my thing.

I would also love to take on some games like Warhammer 40k, but the barrier to entry is too high.

2.5.3) What type of opponents do you prefer?

I prefer opponents dedicated to making each game different from the last. Who view games as a learning experience and so are happy to take on unconventional strategies solely for the sake of discovering if they work, or if not why they fail.

2.5.4) Are you more interested in story or gameplay?

I believe that story and gameplay have an inseperable bond. A player who thinks the story is stupid is unlikely to be invested in the game and therefore feels unsatisfied with the gameplay. particularly difficult levels are made more intense by a story that rides upon the players success, and some of my most cherished memories of games involve sacrificing a particularly beloved unit in order to get past a difficult roadblock.

conversely though, without good gameplay the story seems awkward and distant no matter how well written it is. If wesnoth somehow encouraged throwing unit after unit at the enemy until they gave way then it would be impossible to give a campaign like 'heir to the throne' that feeling of a small group of elves gradually reclaiming a continent otherwise lost.

I think that story and gameplay are crucially linked as far as game development goes, but for this particular project Im more interested in developing gameplay.

2.5.5) Have you played Wesnoth? If so, tell us roughly for how long and whether you lean towards single player or multiplayer.

yes. I like each mode for different reasons, but would tend toward multiplayer.

2.6) If you have contributed any patches to Wesnoth, please list them below. You can also list patches that have been submitted but not committed yet and patches that have not been specifically written for GSoC. If you have gained commit access to our repository (during the evaluation period or earlier) please state so.

working on improving village naming. -- incomplete

3) Communication skills

3.1) Though most of our developers are not native English speakers, English is the project's working language. Describe your fluency level in written English.

I am very fluent.

3.2) What spoken languages are you fluent in?

just english.

3.3) Are you good at interacting with other players? Our developer community is friendly, but the player community can be a bit rough.

yes. If I can survive the League community, Im fairly certain that I can survive anywhere.

3.4) Do you give constructive advice? yes. I pride myself on my ability to teach players new to games/dances/programs quickly while also imparting confidence.

3.5) Do you receive advice well?

I think so. I understand that criticism of my work should not be taken as a personal criticism.

3.6) Are you good at sorting useful criticisms from useless ones

While a more difficult task then it sounds, I think my experience as a dance instructor and Game Master who often asks for feedback has given me experience with this. When in doubt, check it against your own and other peoples experiences.

3.7) How autonomous are you when developing ? Would you rather discuss intensively changes and not start coding until you know what you want to do or would you rather code a proof of concept to "see how it turn out", taking the risk of having it thrown away if it doesn't match what the project want

If anything, I often tend towards 'too autonomous,' spending lengthy amounts of time looking for solutions that require only a simple question. That being said, I find it absolutely critical to know what the project needs before taking one on, I need to know how to know when I'm finished in order to work autonously.

4) Project

4.1) Did you select a project from our list? If that is the case, what project did you select? What do you want to especially concentrate on?

4.2) If you have invented your own project, please describe the project and the scope.

4.3) Why did you choose this project?

4.4) Include an estimated timeline for your work on the project. Don't forget to mention special things like "I booked holidays between A and B" and "I got an exam at ABC and won't be doing much then".

4.5) Include as much technical detail about your implementation as you can

4.6) What do you expect to gain from this project?

4.7) What would make you stay in the Wesnoth community after the conclusion of SOC?

I plan on sticking around regardless. My experience with the developers here so far has been amazingly positive and Im truly interested in Wesnoth.

5) Practical considerations

5.1) Are you familiar with any of the following tools or languages?

   Sub­­version (used for all commits)
     havent used before, but Im pretty adept at learning new terminal commands.
   C++ (language used for all the normal source code)
      pretty new to C++, but Ive used other C-like languages and havent had trouble reading the source.
   STL, Boost, Sdl (C++ libraries used by Wesnoth)
      again, not familiar with, but they look easy to pick up.
   Python (optional, mainly used for tools)
      have programmed in before.
   build environments (eg cmake/scons)
       done lots of compiling of various things. not much other work with them. (enough to put the game together)
   WML (the wesnoth specific scenario language)
       am not familiar with.
   Lua (used in combination with WML to create scenarios) 
       am not familiar with

5.2) Which tools do you normally use for development? Why do you use them? I use terminal and gedit. I find that relying on linux tools rather then an IDE gives me a better understanding of what exactly is happening, and gives me a flexible set of tools to work with. java development I do in eclipse.

5.3) What programming languages are you fluent in? Python, ada, java, scheme.

5.4) Would you mind talking with your mentor on telephone / internet phone? We would like to have a backup way for communications for the case that somehow emails and IRC do fail. If you are willing to do so, please do list a phone number (including international code) so that we are able to contact you. You should probably *only* add this number in the application for you submit to google since the info in the wiki is available in public. We will *not* make any use of your number unless some case of "there is no way to contact you" does arise! I have no reservations about personal contact.