PyWeek - Wibble

(Note - the above files (If viewing this on the list of all games.) are the code for the full version - you will need a computer with panda 3D installed to use this. On the download page there are Windows installers for convenience. The lite version is for lower spec. computers as the full version is very demanding.)

A protest simulation - you control the police in a simple (But deceptively tricky) RTS and kettle some protesters. Kettling is a term that reached prominence recently when used by the police at the G20 demonstrations in London - it refers to trapping a group of protesters in an area and not letting them leave, for any reason. The only way to leave early is to suffer a medical emergency, or suffer a medical emergency because you can't leave in the first place to get medicine.
This is a solo entry by lethe.
Proof you can obtain my victory condition of 50% kettled.

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Ratings (show detail)
Fun: 2.8
Production: 3
Innovation: 4
55% respondents marked the game as not working.
Respondents: 4
Files: Uploader Date
kettling-lite-0.1.tar.gz — final 11.34 Mbytes lethe 2009/05/03 17:03
Re-upload of lite version with readme file - needs a less beafy computer to run than normal version; requires panda 3D.
kettling-0.1.tar.gz — final 11.34 Mbytes lethe 2009/05/03 16:59
Exactly the same as kettling.tar.gz, just with the addition of a readme.txt file I forgot. Still requires Panda 3D to run - windows users will be better off with the installer.
kettling-lite-0.1.exe 36.84 Mbytes lethe 2009/05/03 08:31
Lite version packaged for Windows - for computers that are affordable.
kettling-lite.tar.gz 11.34 Mbytes lethe 2009/05/03 07:44
Version with the numbers of protestors and police scaled back - a lot kinder to non-killer hardware
kettling-0.1.exe 36.85 Mbytes lethe 2009/05/03 00:11
Windows installer - comes with an integrated copy of Panda (hence the size), so it should run on a vanilla Windows install.
kettling.tar.gz — final 11.34 Mbytes lethe 2009/05/02 23:53
Final version, unpackaged so you will need Panda to make it run
game4.tar.gz 10.10 Mbytes lethe 2009/05/02 19:12
Basically complete - in need of instructions, multiple difficulty levels and a victory screen.
5.jpg 129.67 Kbytes lethe 2009/05/02 17:23
Proof you can obtain my victory condition of 50% kettled.
4.jpg 131.30 Kbytes lethe 2009/05/02 16:48
New level, with a bunch of kettled protestors. Poor bobbles.
game3.tar.gz 606.07 Kbytes lethe 2009/05/01 16:46
Bug fix plus various refinements - previous didn't run under Windows.
game2.tar.gz 600.12 Kbytes lethe 2009/04/30 15:33
First version that is playable, in the weakest sense of the word.
3.jpg 99.82 Kbytes lethe 2009/04/30 15:13
About to order a line of policemen to advance in a line
game1.tar.gz 591.25 Kbytes lethe 2009/04/28 22:50
Early version - nothing more than a protest simulation
2.jpg 112.06 Kbytes lethe 2009/04/28 22:48
A real protest - the yellow once need to go to the toilet
1.jpg 85.61 Kbytes lethe 2009/04/28 17:28
wip - a little protest around the building with the strange roof.

Sunday 03 May, 2009

[ lethe @ 00:36 ] Time to optimise

Well, I've uploaded my final version, and it is playable right through to completion, but it requires obscene compute resources for such a puny game - I'm afraid you will need a good processor to play this - my 2Ghz Athlon XP 64 on 64 bit Ubuntu chugs along at 12-15 fps depending on what is happening. (Its processor limited - rendering consumes very little time. Its not even the physics that is doing it - its the dam AI. Once this is over I'll increase the speed by an order of magnitude once I have the time to profile it properly. You just shouldn't call that many trig functions in Python. Be warned that if you do have a low frame rate the physics can explode...) Tomorrow I'll create a 'lite' version though - I presume its within the rules to simply adjust a few integers so there are less protesters and less policemen, so people can run it on lower end hardware. I won't mark those versions as final anyway and let the judges decide. My game requires Panda 3D as its only library to run (And Python of course, unless your on Windows, in which case Panda includes its own copy of Python.) - you can get it from panda3d.org. Its simple enough to install and supports Windows, Linux (32 bit and 64 bit, many distros.) as well as Mac OS support. Just note that Mac support is relatively recent and still has some issues. I have however created a Windows installer (The kettling-0.1.exe file) - that should just install and run, regardless of what is on your computer, with its own copy of Panda etc. I don't have time now but tomorrow I'll see if I can create a 32 bit Linux package as well - I think pandas packaging system does both .deb's and .rpms. (It doesn't work with 64 bit Linux or Mac OS though, so for them you will need to install Panda.) For the game itself I think its kinda fun - it initially seems simple, but turns out to be frustratingly tricky, at least when not in easy mode. A house mate also said he found it addictive, which was satisfying:-) A lot of stuff got dropped in the end, most notably detailed stats on completion and the bribing of politicians. (Both exist in part in code, but are lacking gui more than anything else.)

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Thursday 30 April, 2009

[ lethe @ 15:29 ] Something resembling a game

Well, its now playable, sort of. The protesters protest and the policemen can be ordered around. For controls its lmb to select, rmb to move - that is it. However, you can group select by dragging and also drag out a line with the rmb to make the policemen form up in a line. Was quite fiddly to get all of that - had to go write a quad tree for selection, but the core concepts now work. Two core gameplay issues still remain - victory conditions, i.e. detecting when the protesters have been kettled in the right place, and adding in a system of upgrades with money, to allow you to buy more policemen and bribe politicians to get new laws to help you. After that the current level needs replacing - its too easy to kettle them and the nodes could be far better placed now I know how the AI behaves.

On the subject of the AI the protesters are quite crazy - most of the time they protest, but every now and again they need to do something else - drink, eat or urinate basically. If there not quick enough there are consequences, including potentially death if they dehydrate, the statistics of which I will collate at the end. Death is in fact how you make money - when a protester dies your policemen get a pay out for stress caused - 1 pound per policeman. Don't worry, with the recession its cheap to bribe politicians! They also have avoidance strategies when stuck, which means that whilst forming a line blocking the protest will mostly work some protesters will work their way around, making them harder to manage.

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Tuesday 28 April, 2009

[ lethe @ 08:24 ] An illegal protest

Well, I now know what I'm making, though I have no idea if I will finish. Its called Kettling, which is one of the tactics used by police in London during the G20 protests. The lawn in question is where the protest is going to take place... and your job in a simplistic RTS is to kettle them off the lawn as it were. Consequences shall be plenty. I'm hoping to make the lawn in question parliament square, just outside Whitehall palace, where it is of course now illegal to have a protest, unless you fill out forms where they will say no if you request more than a few people. But modelling that, even in the simplistic cartoon style I'm using, would be tricky. I might add the bribing of politicians to get useful laws to improve your odds as well if I find time. (some of which will be real laws that have been passed, just to make the point.) Anyway, right now I have a test level, 'bobbles' which are my human substitutes, as I don't have time to draw humans, but due to the use of ODE for physics they move really rather awesome. I have the ability to make them walk from a to b and some basic route finding setup but not yet used. Next step is to integrate that, at which point I should have a protest. Then I need to work out how to control the police and add camera controls, at which point I have a game.

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