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Communications Puzzle Games (Games)

Games Come to Pidgin 86

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the c-is-dead-long-live-c dept.
Tovok7 writes "Free software instant messengers have long been lacking the support to play games with your friends. The waiting is finally over, because today Pidgin Games was released. It comes as plugins for the popular Instant Messenger Pidgin and is running under Linux and Windows. The special thing about Pidgin Games is that it is written in the new programming language Vala which has a C# like syntax, but compiles to pure C."
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Games Come to Pidgin More

Games Come to Pidgin

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  • The real news is Vala (Score:5, Informative)

    by outZider ( 165286 ) on Monday June 02, 2008 @05:31PM (#23631789) Homepage
    Why have I never seen Vala featured on Slashdot before? If anything, the language intrigues me, and seems to be a nice way to get OO GTK going on without silly C hacks or writing it in Perl/Python.

    When on earth did this happen?

  • New feature? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Enderandrew ( 866215 ) <enderandrew@NOsPAM.gmail.com> on Monday June 02, 2008 @05:34PM (#23631815) Homepage Journal
    I thought they just spent all their time removing features for new releases these days.

    I don't understand how years and years back, Gaim had rudimentary support for voice and video (the most requested feature) and tons of other features. In the past 3-4 years of development, voice and video was never finished and is no longer an option to even compile in I do believe. And instead of new features, I keep seeing more and more features removed to streamline the app.

    I'm not sure it has moved forward in years.

    I'm waiting for kopete on Windows.

    • Re:New feature? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kcbanner ( 929309 ) * on Monday June 02, 2008 @05:44PM (#23631907) Homepage Journal
      Yea, as well as the send message box resize issue. I mean they literally got into an argument over whether or not the resizing of that box was allowed. Now someone tell me where I can get a copy of the code where resizing the box is possible, I liked that feature (its too small so that if I type a long message, it expands and scrolls the text up a little bit, very annoying).

      • Try Carrier (Score:4, Informative)

        by zjbs14 ( 549864 ) on Monday June 02, 2008 @05:49PM (#23631955) Homepage
        (Formerly FunPidgin) Forked after the resize box debacle. http://funpidgin.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
        • Carrier also adds some other nice features besides that. The one that was most critical to me was the ability to turn off the "inline typing notifications". Basically pidgin displays text in your IM box telling you your buddy is typing (appended after the last IM in the box)... I can't figure out why anyone would want that - not only is it distracting, but we already have a nice little icon in the corner that shows a typing keys picture when they're typing.

          Why would anyone think it was a good idea to add
          • It may be too late for you now (though you can downgrade by manually getting the packages, uninstalling the new ones, and then dpkg -i each in turn), but if you go back to Gutsy Gibbon, put something like this in your apt preferences file:

            Explanation: Part of GAIM, newer versions unusable
            Package: pidgin libpurple0 libpurple-bin pidgin-data
            Pin: version 2.3.1*
            Pin-Priority: 1001
            Watch out when you do dist upgrades, I might have missed a few packages, because when I try to do a dist-upgrade on my Debia

          • The inline typing notification was changed to an option in 2.4.2, so you can turn it back to an icon. Personally, I like it inline because I notice it more easily, but to each his own. I do think that a lot of the resistance to changes in Pidgin is simply resistance to change, but at the same time the developers' refusal to add options (and subsequent backpedaling in the next version) is kind of ridiculous as well.

            I think it would be good if people started running bleeding-edge builds of Pidgin like the ni

      • Funpidgin has already been mentioned, but that feature has also been released as a plugin.
      • I know it's not the same as how it used to be, but now (as of at least 2.4.2) you can set a minimum number of lines for the text box. If you go over that number of lines, the box grows.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Hatta ( 162192 )
          That's a poor solution. The biggest problem with expanding text boxes is that it's visually distracting. The text box growing causes everything else in the window to move. It's hard for me to believe anyone can stand this feature. Good thing I don't use IM regularly.

      • I mean they literally got into an argument over whether or not the resizing of that box was allowed.
        It's actually much easier to spark a big argument over something trivial than something complex. See the bike shed [bikeshed.com] story, which better read in full than any summary I can make. (Pst, if you don't like the colors, turn on javascript and refresh. :) )
    • Wait a second. Pidgin is an all-one client for proprietary networks. How can they reliably make voice and video extensions without the help of AOL, Yahoo, MSN, etc who would rather then not have it?

      I can see it working for only pidgin or perhaps an open standard along with jabber, but the app isnt a drop in replacement for those clients. Its always been an unsupported and unloved hack by those who run the chat networks. Like Trillian.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by p0tat03 ( 985078 )

        Pidgin is an all-one client for proprietary networks. How can they reliably make voice and video extensions without the help of AOL, Yahoo, MSN, etc who would rather then not have it?

        The same way they make text chat work for AOL, Yahoo, MSN, etc. A closed video protocol is no different than a closed text protocol, just much harder to reverse engineer :)

        I for one am disappointed at the MSN support in libpurple. It's been *how long* since MSNP14 came out, and we still don't have support for it? "Experimental" MSNP14 support has been in for ages, but has never moved up to mainline. C'mon guys, I want offline chat support dammit :(

        • So do it yourself. Yeah it's unusual that someone hasn't gotten up off their butt but you can't exactly complain-- it's free.
        • You dont even need MSNP14 to be properly supported to handle off-line chat support, sure kopete just has some 'hack' to do it but at least it works (a la beryl vs compiz). I'm a KDE user but i always favour cross platform apps so that I'm not tied to Linux, but since my brother showed me that kopete can handle fake off-line MSN users I've finally stuck with kopete, which actually seams to improve instead of regress.
      • Other clients like AMSN manage to do it just fine, and there was a voice and video fork of Gaim way back in the day that did it as well. Gaim asked to fold the fork into mainline, but basically just killed it.

        And since AOL is using Jabber these days, MSN and Yahoo are the only two that you really have to worry about.

    • Re:New feature? (Score:5, Funny)

      by squisher ( 212661 ) on Monday June 02, 2008 @05:59PM (#23632071)

      I thought they just spent all their time removing features for new releases these days.

      I don't understand how years and years back, Gaim had rudimentary support for voice and video (the most requested feature) and tons of other features. In the past 3-4 years of development, voice and video was never finished and is no longer an option to even compile in I do believe.
      AFAIK they just didn't have the manpower to improve upon the rudimentary audio and video support. Pidgin's goal has always been to work on many IM networks, and if you had followed at all what goes on on the mailing list, then you would know that they are not against integrating audio and video support at all, they only want the code to be of good quality. So all they need is for some people to step up to the task :-).

      • So all they need is for some people to step up to the task :-).
        Like anyone would want to work with those assholes.
    • Personally, I use pidgin because it's completely devoid of excess crap. Actually, the first things I do upon installing it are to disable sounds, graphical smileys and incoming fonts and colors.

    • Re:New feature? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 02, 2008 @07:32PM (#23632911)

      And instead of new features, I keep seeing more and more features removed to streamline the app.

      Its the recession, we all gotta cut back a bit.

  • Who will use it? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Gigiya ( 1022729 )
    I use Pidgin. No one I chat with does.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by xtracto ( 837672 ) *
      That is why one of the first games available are Solitaire and minesweeper.
    • Sounds pretty lonely. Stay with the real-life chat. It tends to work better in random encounters like the +8 Hot Babe in the coffee shop!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Ant P. ( 974313 )
      I use it too, as an answering machine for AIM messages. It's not good for much else except wasting RAM. When I want to IM someone I use Psi.

  • Compiled to pure C? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by QUILz ( 1043102 ) <quilzhunter931@gmail.com> on Monday June 02, 2008 @05:44PM (#23631911) Homepage
    For simple instant messenger games, wouldn't a virtual machine suffice? I'd just find it easier to trust a game someone's happened to write for this if it presented far less risk to my system.

  • Wasted Effort (Score:5, Interesting)

    by phantomcircuit ( 938963 ) on Monday June 02, 2008 @05:48PM (#23631951) Homepage
    Where is the Audio and Video?!
  • Look, I know it's open-source and they're doing it for free and yadda yadda yadda.
    But try making a functional prog before adding more plugins we don't care about!
    • It'd be nice if it had Facebook chat a la Digsby.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by c_cinq ( 696533 )
      we do care for games. but you're right about the application's core functionality. gaim-vv is still stuck in 2005.

    • Re:No webcam, no mic, but GAMES?! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Monday June 02, 2008 @10:25PM (#23634099) Homepage Journal
      The nice thing about open source is that many people can work in that program. That some like to add games dont stop other people to add the webcam/mic/whatever functionality they think is missing.

      And if you are so hurried for some particular functionality, add it yourself or hire someone to do that, worked for a lot of big companies that rely on open source. Freedom means also that a pidgin programmer can add the feature that he wants, but that don't means that is the one you want.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Hitto ( 913085 )
        As I said, it's free open source, I'm grateful, yadda yadda yadda.
        BUT! I didn't know pidgin was performing *so well* that adding a games plugin would make the news, whereas "open-source IM prog still can't use a microphone or a webcam" would be considered trolling. Kinda like "still no cure for cancer" science news on fark.

        Aw, to heck with it. I'm switching to kopete.
  • Most if not all internet based games have a layer of chat behind it, is almost a plugin. That a chat program have could games as plugin is something potentially good. Connecting people is the 1st step, maximizing what they can do together is the 2nd one, and games fits perfectly there.

    The next steps is to have an standard for implementing those games in more chat clients/platforms, and of course, adding good multiuser games.
  • I thought I'd have a look, but no it wouldn't install go figure.
  • Before I go on: I use pidgin for all my chatting activities, and it is an invaluable tool for me.

    That said one has to wonder why Pidgin takes longer to startup than does OpenOffice Writer...
    Luckily though, I only start it once a week, the day after booting into Windows for lan games.
  • Was I the only one who read the title and first thought it meant a game was being made in a pidgin language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin)?

    Then I woke up and realized, no, this is slashdot, 10% really interesting news stories, 90% linux gibberish (to me personally, not trying to flamebait here).

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