Thoughts on First few Days of SURF

Working in the FOSS (Free and open source) box has been a great time so far. It is very chill in the room with everyone working on their own thing and getting stuff done. The team is a great mix of people excited about working on the project and working well together. One of the students I am working with is deaf, and while I thought it would be a hurdle and a big trouble to keep him in the loop, he has been super knowledgable and gets more than his share of work done. It is definitely a different way to work to only chat with someone in IRC and not in real life, but definitely one I consider to be interesting and useful. The team I am working on is one working with Red Hat (the makers of Fedora, a linux operating system) on a Fedora RPG. Our team was assembled to be the writers of the first design document for the game and to help shape what kind of game it will be. It has been very interesting researching various MMORPGs not for my own benefit, but in an almost academic setting. The team is now working on compiling a document for Red Hat to look at that will give them an understanding of Alternate Reality Games, Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, Social Games (like those of Facebook) and Virtual Worlds aka Second Life. With this document those at Red Hat can hopefully determine what kind of game they wish to see. The research has been a great read and all the data we are compiling makes for a great and informative read. This job really gives me the chance to talk to people about the design of various games and how to go about designing them well. I have not really gotten a chance to do this in classes and it is very exciting. Check back daily as I post more info with what I’m doing this summer!