u/Wranglyph

Hey folks, sorry if this isn't the place to ask but I figured if anybody would be interested in this it would be y'all.

Starting this summer, another dev and I are planning to start a free and open source voxel game that attempts to balance deep simulation with approachable gameplay- and we're gonna need some help.

For most people, it's just going to be a fun game. But my real goal, 'secretly,' is to lead as many normies over to FOSS as possible.

Now, seeing as how this game takes place on a spaceship, I've been thinking for some time that it ought to have an LCARS-inspired in-game computer system, which for a while I figured we should just worry about later.

But the other day, it hit me: 'what if the-in game operating system was actually a *real* linux distro? I realize that sounds like an over-the-top amount of work, but it would nicely create the perfect breadcrumb trail for us:
gamer gets the game on steam --> plays game ---> starts using in-game computer system ----> 'holy smokes there's a real version of this?? Gimme gimme! --> Boom, new FOSS-head.

There will be some significant challenges though- for starters, I have a .txt doc with about 80 novel/seminovel UX ideas sitting on my desktop, lol.
Additionally, the embedded OS has to be as performance friendly as can reasonably be achieved, since the base game will likely be pretty performance intensive.

Oh, and did I mention that I have plans to try and re-unite the long estranged TUI and GUI frameworks? Yea again, I know it sounds over the top- but I think that particular split is actually one of the main barriers that trips people up on their journey to full-stack development.

The neat thing about it being a real distro though, is that we can actually create a version of the game that players can boot directly into, allowing them to really juice their machines for maximum performance.

I'm going to be completely honest with you guys, I'm still Minty-fresh on linux, and I've actually shipped any production grade code- but this other dev? She's the real deal. I actually think if we can get just a few more serious devs to help get this off the ground, we might have something really special. (I'm open to commissions/hiring down the line, by the way.)

My next steps, personally, are to do a little git practice, and then make the aquarium on late.sh as a warmup to TUI development. Ideally, at that point, I'd like to get started on the OS, and develop it in parallel with the simulation kernel. (We'll be using Luanti as the rendering engine, btw, at least for now.)

Hi guys! I'm a new developer trying to get the gang together for a big project, which I think the gentoo community might be interested in.

I have some leadership experience, but unfortunately am not quite up to par with my linux and development skills, lol. See, to get past the forum's spam filter, you have to run
'cut -d" " -f2 /etc/gentoo-release | md5sum ' in the terminal, and the website what that produces.
I've tried using distrosea to run a session, but unfortunately it isn't working. I know they have a live boot you can put on a usb, but I looked at it and I'm pretty sure if I did it by myself it would take several days to figure out lol. (Took me like a week to get mint running. 😅)

I was wondering if maybe someone could help me out here? Would love to be able to focus on writing the actual proposal- alternatively, does anyone know if the forum supports markdown*, so I can create the proposal now and worry about getting into the forum later?

*specifically, whether I can use detail breakouts like on a wikipedia article. A yes/no on this feature is a big factor in the document can be formatted.

Here's a quick summary of the project btw if you're interested:
>!Cradle of Clay is a free and open source voxel game, engineered for social good- it was inspired by Klei Wright's video essay on minecraft ecology, where he says "I wish my favorite voxel games... could be more than just voxel games." !<

>! Cradle of Clay will feature a fully simulated ecology, complete with temparature, fluid, and even weather simulation. It will also take place on a spaceship, and be both fun and approachable! Here's a link to the rough draft proposal from a few months ago:!<

>! https://github.com/Wranglyph/Luanti_Community_Ecology_Project!<

>!Architecturally, it has three main components:!<

1. >!The voxel bonder, which handles the simulation math. (I have an experience dev who will be starting this in June, but she wants me to get her some more help.)!<
2. >!The voxel client, which handles voxel rendering and player input. (We'll be using Luanti during development.)!<
3. >!Mosaic OS, which is an in-game computer system for the space ship.!<>!I'll have to get in pretty deep to realize my vision for this, which is why I'm reaching out to the gentoo community.!<