Working with serioussam24 and seriousjak on ideas, got a theme and starting (ANOTHER!) 2d physics library.  Well, it works in pygame, and that's what we need.  I hope that we can get everything together before Sunday!

DAY 2

11:00 AM - Overslept, must start working. As I went to bed last night, I came up with the idea of developing AI that would pose as a computer. I have no idea how I'm going to do it, but I think it would make the game so much better. Also, I'm thinking of putting my own voice in the game, where the computer would react by playing my voice whenever something happens. First, I'm gonna make sure everything else from yesterday is solid.

11:40 AM - Managed to create a computer player class, but it's hardly AI. For now, it just randomly chooses an open spot on the board regardless of strategy.

12:30 PM - The computer now has the ability to recognize priority spaces. The cpu reads all the two-in-a-rows and one-in-a-rows for X and O. The cpu will move based on these priorities: blocking a player's two-in-a-row has highest priority, filling its own two-in-a-row has next priority, blocking a player's one-in-a-row has next priority, adding to its own one-in-a-row has lowest priority. In the case where the cpu cannot fill achieve any of it's priorities, it will fill a completely random space.

1:00 PM - Right now, I'm writing out lines for the computer to say when stuff happens. I've decided that the cpu will be rather sarcastic, sadistic, and kind of a jerk XD

2:40 PM - I'm starting to incorporate my voice into the game. Right now the voices are just placeholders. For example, when a human player blocks a cpu's two-in-a-row, it will say "Player blocks two-in-a-row" but during the final version, it might say say something like "NOOOOOOOOOOO" or "You're mean" or "Why did you do that"

5:30 PM - I've had to take quite a break because I have a test tomorrow. Most of the voice triggers are in place. Now I need to record multiple speech outcomes for different scenarios so that the player doesn't hear the same speeches over and over again. Also, I need to optimize the algorithms for cpu spot selection.

12:00 AM - Haven't gotten much work done, because of that test tomorrow. I'll try to make time during the week to keep working.

After quite a while of trying to come up with an idea that fits "nine times" I finally have something.  Basically it will be a platformer with nine different endings -- so it has to be played a minimum of nine times to see them all.

There will be thirteen levels.  The first four levels will each have three branching paths and the remaining nine levels will be shorter and more linear leading to the ending.  Each path will also have some different story I hope -- if I have enough time to do more than just make different scenarios.

Here is a diagram illustrating how the level branching will be:

I also decided to not use Python Ogre but instead use PyGame, since I don't really feel like spending a lot of time making 3D graphics.

team crow-magnon. Brostorm got a 6-pack of Spaten Dunkel and yelled ideas at his teammate, jamiltron, and he did the same. We argued back and forth about what classes should do what and where and why, and which ones get factories and which ones don't. We came up with an awesome idea for what to do with the game and we both agreed that we both hope our parents never see our finished product.

When I first saw the themes I ranked "Nine Times" highest, but after a week I changed my vote and moved it to the last position. I think it is easy to superficially satisfy (for example with a platformer where you get 9 lives or have to collect 9 treasures) but hard to build a game around as a core. Many diaries however already showcase fantastic ideas and prototypes, so I expect to be pleasantly surprised.

I am also pretty happy with our take on it: it's an adventure game where you make decisions at 9 critical points in time. You can freely move back and forth and revise your choices until you get the desired results.

I loved Suspended Sentence last year and it made me realize that while adventure games need a bunch of assets they are not uneconomical. It takes a lot of time to fine-tune an action game or logic puzzle to get the difficulty and feel right, and if you get it wrong it can bury the game. An adventure game however will still be fun even if it's a little too easy or too hard. Tweaking is not critical.

Anyway, I've got a lot of drawing to do!

The theme inspired many game ideas:

A logic type game similar to connect-four: connect-nine
 
a platformer where the main character is a cat and has nine lives

a game based around the gimmick that you can alter gravity by up to 9 times

A mystery interactive fiction type game based around a newspaper called "The Nine Times" and its headline articles

We have decided to go with an idea based on the fictional "Nine Times" a newspaper set in the 1930s that is uncovering the plot of a great (or not so great) mystery. I had a lot of love for the connect-nine idea. As far as I know it hasn't been extended beyond four, so this would be a world exclusive. Though to make the game fun, the computer opponent must have a clever artificial intelligence (AI). None of our group have any real experience with making AI. And I have heard that it is a difficult task. There were probably other things we could have implemented to spice up the computer's abilities. Like random quotes downloaded from twitter and having the computer AI say them as sledging. That could be another world exclusive for pyweek, I'm not sure. 

I guess the irony of the whole story is that interactive fiction is also notoriously difficult to make, and make fun. Lets see how far we get in a week!

Love, jtrain

 

"The skaapsteker is an alert, somewhat nervous snake that is capable of very rapid movement on a hot day"

The morning started out nervous, but things got pretty hot later into the evening.

We came into this PyWeek thinking we'd like to write a platformer of some sort. We then spent the morning designing 3 completely different games (inspired by the theme) before finally settling on a platformer. Hopefully we'll remember those designs, and implement them in the future.

Our coders are overjoyed this PyWeek, as we can all code and don't have to learn how to draw. We really scored by getting not only a dedicated artist (oliverh), but a story designer (Ravenna) too.

Status: The broad game layout is done, and we have a full story in progress. We have a level loader, some dummy graphics, a couple of backgrounds and main character animations drawn, and a bunch of crazy levels (that probably (hopefully?) bear no relation to the final game). We have crazy bouncing physics (which apparently mean we should have used a physics engine).

Next steps:

• Implement the player character
• Hook up events and interactivity.
• Write the introductory mission and playtest.

I hate theme. It is  about number and that number is too big. You know, from gameplay perspective. If a game has nine things or in game You can do nine thing -- it is just too much for good gameplay. Anyway, I have concept in my head and I have start to code something.
Idea is simple. It is... It is... Actually, I have no idea how to express my concept with words... Or any other way...

Well that was day one then. I stayed up waaaaay past my bed time to find out what the theme was (I live in the UK), and then I promptly went to bed, wondering what I was going to do with 'Nine Times'.

Inspiration came this morning in the form of some suggestions from my two sons, who both had some great ideas about using a game idea I was working on last year. I decided to go with it, strip it back because of the one week deadline and set about scribbling notes and cackling like a madman (OK, I lied about the cackling).

My idea is this: you control two ships at once. One on the bottom of the screen, and one on the side. Both fire when you hit the fire key. Yes, it may be tricky - time will tell how solid this idea is.

You have to defend a space ship filled with... oh I don't know, the last of humanity or something, from attacking alien scum, which need to be blasted to bits. 

The aliens will attack in formations of 9, and the shield of the ship you must protect can only take 9 direct hits before exploding and taking with it the last of humanity. Oh, and the name of the game: CrossFire... has nine letters. :-)

I have scribbled some 8 bit retro sprites, and plan to add some kind of neon glow effect to them before the week is through. I have tried to upload a screenshot of the game, but I keep getting a http 500 error. I'll try again in my next entry.

This was quite a good start into a new PyWeek - far better than the last two or three ones where we struggled a bit to find a decent idea and then implement it. :)

About the game itself:
Nine Times was our second-least favourite and our idea for it was rather "meh". The original idea was a Jump & Run about an old cat who retells his life-story (or 9-life-story) to a younger kitten. Sadly, the older cat died on each of his adventures he is now telling the kitten and the task of the player would have been to find out how the cat died (on our list of deaths were: "Fall from a high place", "Electrocuted", "Drowned", "Clobbered by something heavy", "Car Accident", "Suffocation", "Chocolate Cake", "Fire/Explosion").
But of course - as always - our least of second-least favourite theme was selected and while brainstorming on the concept of the original idea, we came up with an even better idea. The boon of that new idea was that it coincidentally also was one of those multiple ideas for possible games we should program sometime/soon/within the next few weeks floating around in our heads (and in some cases on paper). During our second Pyggy we finally completed our very first PyWeek game "The Villainy of Cat Food Inc." with Nanji and Guy as stars. The outro music of that game (the one that plays when the credits are rolling in) sounded very "ninja-like" and we jokingly added an idea to our collection of "Nanji the Ninja" hopping from wall to wall and tree to tree in her quest for tunas.

Well, there we are. Our goal for this PyWeek is now to create a Jump & Run game starring Nanji as Ninja on her quest to collect the signets/medals of the nine Ninjat (Ninja+Cat) Clans and ... well either get lots of tunas or save the world. Whatever happens to be behind that giant vault door that can only be opened by using the nine Clan signets/medals - Nanji the Ninja of course hopes for the world's biggest tuna treasure, but if she has to save the world.. geez, so be it! :D

Status after the first day:

ServalKatze was able to create a basic Jump & Run framework with collision detection. She currently is working on implementing some of the Nanji character graphics I created today which should keep her busy for the rest of her day. (She just managed to break the Run part of Jump & Run, so we have a Jump & Jump for now)

Naturally (me working during the week and stuff) today was the most productive PyWeek day and I'm a bit (just a little bit) disappointed on how little I was able to complete today from the graphics side. I really do like the graphics I created and I put a lot of hours in them - just adding the shadows took me 1 and a half hour [before: http://www.zahmekoses.de/dump/PyWeek12/nanji_previous.png; now: http://www.zahmekoses.de/dump/PyWeek12/nanji_now.png]. But apart from the main character everything else is currently missing and I aimed to get some more done due to my limited time after today.

Nevertheless, below the promised animations (these can't compete with animated ponies, but I still like them) :D


Idling


Running


Walking


Throwing Shurikens


Jumping


Going Forward / Next Milestones:
Serval's List:
- implement all of Nanji's graphics and my (soon to come) simple tileset
- create a simple editor so we can start creating some levels or level-chunks for testing (and later for the game itself), which will be expanded as needed based on new tiles
- Level load logic
- Construct a basic main menu, level selection, whatever else is needed, etc.

My List:
- create a simple tileset (grass, dirt, stonewall) so we can create some basic levels for Nanji to ninja around in
- Enemy Ninja's (if I don't find enough time these probably will be recycled and colorcoded-for-your-convenience Nanji's)
- Some further Nanji-Animations
- Maybe transition-animations between sitting and walking etc.
- Menu-graphics

That's it for today - hopefully more graphic stuff tomorrow :D