A good evening of development but still a lot to do tomorrow. I think every PyWeek we enter ends more frantically than the previous one. Not a good trend. :)

Highlights of the day:

• Fixed our first Windows-specific bug.
• Yip when hit.
• Doorways for moving between levels.
• Support for double-tap key interactions and a sprinting fox.
• Support for ethereal objects that one can collide with without being physically impeded.
• Draft versions of all of the intended levels.
• Creating a limbo for storing items that aren't anywhere else.
• More work on dialogue state machines.
• Item dropping and swapping.
• Moar images!
• Snout Up Display including inventory, health bar, tail indicator, tofu and scroll counts.

Tomorrow morning the team is gathering for breakfast and then there'll be a big push to get everything we'd like in done before we have to start packaging. The Lurgi seems to have backed off a bit so we might even be at full developer strength for the final sprint.

So.  A friend of mine needed me today.  And needs me tomorrow.  This is going to have a negative impact on the game.

I've still been working on it -- I printed out the source code and took it with me to various waiting rooms today.  And I'll do the same tomorrow -- actually, if I can get it typed in and debugged I might have a chance to at least have a player, missile and target operational.

No new screenshots, though. :-(  i could show my scribbled notes.

To be optimistic -- I want to finish this for my daughter to actually use to help her out with her multiplication tables.  Since she's doing the art, I think I can at least get her to play it once or twice. :-)

This will be the second game I've written just for my daughter -- the first was when she was 2.  I wrote a program using Blitz Basic that simply responded to any keypress or mouse click by drawing a large, brightly colored geometric object randomly on a screen.

Lines of code: 1939

I'm not going to spoil the surprise by posting any more commit log, videos, pictures, or sound. You'll just have to play it to find out!

Things are progressing on track. I already have something playable and working right now, all that needs doing is some more levels and bug fixes.

Good news - Tyler managed to get his computer working and make an awesome track.

I really need sleep but I'm going to be out and about for another 10 hours. I can do this.

TODO:
Day 7 (half-day):

• create at least 3 more levels
• critical bug: if you die several times, memory keeps expanding and sound stops working
• important bug: belly flop stuck in wall, and don't call it game over until all belly flops are turned to dead bodies
• test on windows and mac

I'd really like to, but probably not going to get to these, unfortunately:

• add a gory explosion of bloody organs when you die on spikes
• bad physics glitch when you jump against a vertical wall
• physics glitch with belly flops and spikes
• death shouldn't interrupt the music flow
• the sound that plays when you win is obnoxious and horrible

Well time has been against me and I'm gonna have to admit defeat.  As I will not be able to complete my game in the week.

But from taking part in my first pyweek I have several lessons I have learned.

i.) preparation.  I should have a better idea for all themes during the voting, got seriously caught out with no real idea.

ii.) resources.  Should be clued up on where to get graphics/sounds ahead of time or work in a team rather than flying solo.

iii.) making time available.  I have only spent a fraction of the time available this week to the game.  Work, kids, family visiting, getting drunk etc have all taken priority.

iv.) unforeseen circumstances, (standing room only on the train, lost me one journeys coding, flat battery on laptop cost me another, lack of swap space caused pc to fail to resume from hibernation lost me another half a journey.)

Having said all that.  I "did" achieve a fully functioning game, albeit a scruffy rough around the edges, silent game in the time.

I am uploading early as the weekend will be spent decorating and enjoying the rare joy of a sunny weekend with friends.

Hopefully I'll see the game through to fruition at some point and I trip my hat to the other coders who have achieved far more in the same time frame.

That being said python is a kick-ass language and I am now enjoying the pleasure of coding with it during my day job as well as a hobby ;) 

Do you ever get tired of games? Have you ever wanted seamless game2coffee integration? Do you ever need to save your state so you can respond to real-time real-life problems?

Now you can!
With our new "pause" feature:
InstaPause lets you pause your game, unpause it and pause it again; whenever you want - wherever you want; endless fun guaranteed!


(Batteries not included)

Also in today's commits:

• A bit of gameplay balancing
• I moved some stuff around
• Score is shown as ints
• Text fits on screen

Posting this message on Saturday morning, which is day 7.
 
Work and hassles with PyPI community noise meant that I was exhausted last night so I watched a bit of a terrible film and played some Just Cause 2 instead of PyWeek'ing.

In the end yesterday I made a start on three new scenes and mostly finished one of them.

I'm hoping to get some quality PyWeek time in today and finish off at least one of the story paths.

DAY 6

11:50 AM - Just updated the voice-to-face dictionary to include the new faces.

12:50 PM - Made a slight tweak to the CPU hard mode. It's hard to test if it works, but I think it works.

3:50 PM - I've implemented the condition that you have to beat easy to play normal, and beat normal to play hard.

5:00 PM - List of things I still need to do: Make the instruction pages, change the "theme" button on the menu into "How to play" (there will not be multiple themes), record and add new voice clips, finalize AI for "hard" mode, update some of the graphics so they look nicer, display cpu speed for cpu vs cpu, disallow X/O animation changing when clicking inside the grid on the menu

6:10 PM - Instructions (How to Play) is implemented and the menu has been updated to include an instructions button.

I've added MUCH better title screen and menu. Now to the rest of my todo list!
 

I've just packaged up a tutorial which includes one of the levels and the tutorial. I'd be really grateful if you could try it and tell me if there any major bugs that I've failed to notice in it.

Download it here: http://media.pyweek.org/dl/12/john2/timetravel.tar.gz

P.S. Don't press "S". If you do, don't say I didn't warn you!

Right, this is it -- I have one day left in which to turn this into a finished game.

Fortunately it looks like I'll actually get a full day, for the first time this pyweek. Been interrupted by work far too much this time. :-(

It's 7am and I've had 5 hours of sleep. Hopefully caffeine, adrenaline and a rising sense of panic will see me through.

Progress: I have random news items appearing on the map. I can direct a reporter to one of them and she will find her way there without having to go cross-country.

To do: Make the runners stop after a couple of hours instead of working all day and night. Display news items as headlines instead of numbers. Make it possible to hire extra reporters and runners. Make the computer player capable of actually playing. Make the status and control area not look like total crap. Hmmm, quite a long way to go. Time to stop journalising and get coding.

I will not read any messages before starting. Closing browser now. NOW!!!

P.S. Daily screenshot: