Thoughts about certain phrases in certain gamemaking competitions never come easily.
 You can guess I'm speaking of the five small phrases that will become of utmost importance in my mind for the next week.

Creativity must become structured. Playability must be categorized.

Aaaaah!

Last pyweek I started coding what I felt was a really cool game on Saturday night oblivious that it was pyweek the next day. I ended up starting a day late and having to shelve my old game for a bit with absolutely no preparation. This pyweek I can work solidly from Sunday-Saturday plus preparing for the different themes.
Hopefully my addiction for VVVVVV won't stop me competing though...

It's time for some game concepts for each theme! Yeah!

More Criticals

1. An RPG where your characters gain an increased critical hit with layers of critical hit (IE: 2x damage, 3x damage, etc.) as they level
2. A shmup where your weapons can have critical hits, given by powerups

Mr. Fixit

1. A puzzle platformer where you have to repair an ancient civilization's machines in order to escape from its ruins
2. A run 'n gun where you are a robot who gains allies by fixing "broken" enemy robots

Mutate!

1. A puzzle game where you command little creatures that mutate between several distinct states do so... well, something
2. A platformer where you play a character who mutates to gain abilities

Mysterious Stranger

1. A beat 'em up where you fight alongside a mysterious stranger to fend off enemies from his mysterious past...
2. A dating sim about trying to seduce a mysterious but beautiful female stranger and possibly even win her heart (this would benefit from Ren'Py, but I'm not sure we're allowed to use Ren'Py)

Negotiator

1. A dating sim where you are a scientist trying to seduce an alien woman.
2. A visual novel where two feuding women whose sons are best friends must try to move past their childhood rivalry for the sake of their children.

So, yeah. In case "negotiator" wins, can we use Ren'Py? It's only kind-of sort-of coding in Python. It uses Python scripting for logic but uses its own language for base functionality. That'd be nice to know.

Peace, love, and the fate of worlds,

--- Akake

Voting just opened up, I will not be saying what I voted for, but there was one theme that seemed to click rather easily, and another that wouldn't be too hard to do.  I'll write down my ideas in 1 paragraph apiece, so I don't forget them, and then forget about pyweek to focus on other tasks this week.  

 See you all in a week.
Python Jedi

Follow my progress on twitter

There are some things I need to do before next weekend:

• Prepare a code skeleton/base (setup.py mainly, I want to support setuptools): DONE
• Read (again) some pygame stuff: DONE
• Think about the game type I want to implement and how can I make it fit into the different possible themes (I've never played Fallout, I hope that's OK and I don't misunderstand any of the themes!): DONE
• Read some literature related to the game type I want to implement (mechanics, programming techniques, etc): DONE

Update: Post Research

I'd like to give py2exe a go, because I don't know how accessible will be the source code in Windows (I'm a Linux user and the only Windows box that I have at hand is an old laptop with Vista - not in use).

I think I have enough documentation about pygame and game mechanics to have a good start. My main concern is that my (limited) experience is with C and SDL, and there are some cool features in pygame that need a mind shift before I start using them (such as the Sprites class).

Besides that, I think I'll be able to adapt my plan to the theme, because it's quite open (still... Mutation! is my favourite!).

Finally I'm going to look for some free clip art and graphics. I left that out of the list, and after reading 3 or 4 tutorials with nice graphics, I'm now convinced that it was a bad idea ;)

Right, so I've been meaning to participate in pyweek for years now. I'll see how much I can fit in around my full time job. Assuming I still go to bed at reasonable hours (I still have to be a productive employee), and taking into account other commitments, I might have

• Sun: 8hrs
• Mon: 2hrs
• Tues/Wed: 0 hrs
• Thur: 2hrs
• Fri: 2-3 hrs?
• Sat: 10 hrs?
• Sun: 6 hrs?

so about 31 hours.. or just over 4 workdays. I could probably get away with a few extra hours on Friday/Sat night since I won't have work the next day.

I still haven't decided if I will be using pygame or pyglet.. I'm not sure what the support for macos is for either so I might need to experiment before the competition starts.

Todo before the challenge starts:

• Get pygame and pyglet running on my mac
• Go through the list of suggested themes and think of some game ideas.
• Attempt to write some lame games in both pygame and pyglet.
• Read How to be Successful at Pyweek.

dcdc

Steve Wildom came today into this little game project,
directly from his shortened holiday. Well, he was too long away.

I mean.. Having two free days is more than enough, he should 
move his lazy ass to the first task of our project, to setup the
damn rendering cluster.

He gets enough paid, I mean for that salary of 3 Dollars per
hour, someone can expect atleast 10+ hours extra after
a full work day.

- the manager

After thinking about what it means to be successful at Pyweek, I've decided not to try to make the game with the best ratings or most fun this time. I don't know how yet, but I want to mix things up. Some potential ideas:

• As long as they don't overstay their welcome, I like those indie games with unclear goals that involve exploration and lateral thinking. They tend to be kind of artsy, but they don't have to be:
  http://www.ludomancy.com/games/today.php
• Related to that, I really like when there's a secret hidden in plain sight. Maybe an object that you assumed was part of the decoration that turns out to relate to the gameplay somehow. Taken to the extreme, you can have 100 secrets hidden in a single room:
  http://www.kongregate.com/games/ArmorGames/achievement-unlocked
• My favorite genre is the wide-open sandbox, but that requires a ton of content to really make it interesting. If I can come up with some creative way for that to exist, I would love to make a sandbox game.
• On a different tack, I've been getting into the work of researcher Jane McGonigal, who champions games (including video games) for social and self improvement. I wonder what would happen if I tried to make a game that makes people better.

Anyway, those are just my initial thoughts. Of course whatever I make will follow from the theme. If I can't think of any way to do something different, I may fall back to a standard game. But we'll see!
Good luck to everyone!

Well it appears that I need to change my description.  I have spent the past week or so trying to make a raycasting engine in python, so I'll probably do something else for pyweek.  If I happen to make anything cool, you'll see it on pygame.org.  ATM it's not functioning, but I hope to have it running soon.