Google Summer of Code Selection
Summer has kicked off with great news. My proposal for the Google Summer of Code with MovingBlocks- Terasology has been selected.
What is the Google Summer of Code?
To the uninitiated, Google Summer of Code is a global program targeted at bringing university students into open source. Students work with an open source organization on a 3 month programming project during their summer break. Google first selects around 200 organisations and funds their open source projects. It’s a win-win. The students get an awesome learning experience and a huge stipend. The organisations get a lot of work done from the dedicated students. Well, Google just plays the nice guy being a good Samaritan.
This would be MovingBlocks’ second GSoC selection as a mentoring organisation, which makes it a veteran org already. With a total of 10 slots this year, way more than last year’s 3, this summer might prove to be the immensely productive for MovingBlocks.
What is MovingBlocks- Terasology?
Moving Blocks- Terasology is a minecraft-like open source game built in a voxel world. A voxel world is essentially a 3-D world made up from blocks. Terasology is still in it’s Alpha stage, but what makes it really special is it’s modularity. With a huge, diverse set of modules already developed/in-development, Terasology offers amazing possibilities. It has a very basic minimal engine, where even core features like health, inventory, combat etc can be added on top or removed as plug-in modules.
What am I doing?
My project is titled as Exploration World- Improved Gameplay (proposal here). In a gist, I plan to add WildAnimals, Puzzles, Exploration and other content to create a new gameplay module. The new gameplay module would pack together the best of whatever is created yet, to create a new gameplay setting that would add meaning and purpose for the end user.
My primary mentor would be Skylar ‘skysom’ Sommers and secondary mentors would be- Florian ‘flo’ Köberle, Xavier ‘xtariq’ Tariq and Isaac ‘iojw’ Ong.
When am I doing this?
Since my college reopens mid-July, I’ve already started work on the Project. Officially May is meant to be a Community-Bonding period for most and the Coding phase only starts in July. However I plan to finish my GSoC early and I’ve already started off with the coding phase.
Blog for updates
I plan to use this blog to keep updating my progress. This blog will also be an attempt to document the work that I’ll be doing. This is gonna be an exciting summer!