Hello everyone,
participation from students willing to take part in the Google Summer of Code has been really positive and admittedly more than we expected! We also had some bugs fixed by some of them, so let me spend a second to thank them for their work (as well as all other casual contributors that make this game great).

Now let's get down to business, the "interim period" in which students approach interesting projects and know the developers has come to an end; the application period opens and students can begin submitting their work statements until April, 8th.

I strongly encourage students *not* to submit a single application, but to prepare several fallbacks (even with a project that is not Hedgewars), as demand for certain topics is high and not all requests may be served. I've added a FAQ regarding how you can get bonus points when you write an application. At any rate, everything must be submitted within April, 8th

Read more for some statistics

As I said, the participation has been great! We've had 42 interested students and 6 proposed something that we didn't think of! That makes us very happy.

Unsurprisingly the most requested application is the Android port, with 10 students asking for more info, same as AI, closely followed by Frontend updates. Here is a full chart:

  Android port              10
  AI                        10
  Frontend updates          8
  Editors                   7
  others                    6
  iOS netplay               5
  Rendering SDL-1.3/GL2.0   4
  Video Output              3
  Network Sync              3
  Construction Mode         2
  Planet mode               1
  multiplayer resume        1

What does that mean? Well we will clearly analize every application but you can guess there will be a lot of competition in the most popular tasks! If you want to impress us, play the game, submit some patch and write a nice application!

Another less interesting stat that came out is that C++ is by far the preferred language among students (19) followed by Java (14) and C (13); only 4 admitted to know Pascal -- but GSoC is a place to learn isn't it?

I think I have post everything; remember to submit your application before April, 8th and poke Henek or me to get access to the GSoC forum section!

Koda