OLPC project seeks open-source educational games

May 27th, 2007 by tim finin

One of the best ways to engage young people with computers is through games. With this in mind, the One Laptop Per Child Project is asking software developers for free, open-source educational computer games for the XO-1 laptop. The XO-1 is an inexpensive laptop intended for children in developing countries. It’s being developed by the OLPC trade association, a non-profit organization created by the MIT Media Lab. The XO-1 is designed to be inexpensive, rugged and low-power, using flash memory instead of a hard drive, Linux and MESH networks.

OLPC ia offering a laptop prize for software teams who create new games during a three-day game jam June 8 at Olin College. OLPC hopes the contest will produce templates that will enable kids to build their own games.

By increasing the software available for the XO, OLPC hopes to encourage governments of developing countries to order more laptops, pushing the group to its sales goal of 3 million units by May 30. OLPC had collected 2.5 million orders by late April, but needed to boost sales enough to order bulk computer parts and stick to the manufacturing schedule. The OLPC wiki has pages on relevant games and the XO game development environment.

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