I feel that even if I didn't add anything else, I would still have a halfway decent game now.  I still need to add sounds, scores and other challenges but at least now I don't have to stress so much about getting it finished.

So far today I added death (and the ability to use your team members as extra lives) as well as changing the maze generation algorithm to remove any deadends.  This is extremely helpful in evading unfriendly mobs.  Unfortunately it does leave these weird 'rooms' in the map but I think they look okay.

It's the final day - corners are being cut, coffee is being brewed, features are dropping, bugs are creeping... when will it all end?

So I am not going to finish my entry. Mostly because of I have no time and I have chosen to work with tools I had no clue about.
Well at least I learn these tools (Blender Game Engine) a little bit. So good luck for all of You. 

And it's going quite well. We might actually finish!

Well that was a disaster. After a good start to the week, it all fell apart from Wednesday. Unforseen personal circumstances, a stinking cold for me and my two boys (I'm a single dad) and the week has dissapeared. We are all off on holiday now, so I've uploaded the code in it's horrendously un-finished state in the spirit of the competition. 

Never mind... there's always PyWeek 14! I'll be back!

Hope you all had a blast... there are some truly amazing games being built as always. I'm looking forward to playing them.

Dave 

Leaves are now rendered with 4-fold symmetry, with the result that they no longer tend to turn into funnels when they mutate.

I'm also using bezier curves for their edges, although I'm not sure it's much of an advantage at the moment.

I've got about 20 hours left, and I need to use as many of them as possible. I'll take a break now to talk a little about the game, but then I'm going to work as hard as I can to reach the deadline.

I just barely have the game in a state where I can play it, and it's a far cry from being in a state where other people can play it. On the plus side, I thought of a good name for the game. Obb.



You anagram-lovers out there will be happy to know that Obb is an anagram of Bob.

So, some thoughts about the gameplay. I wanted to challenge myself this Pyweek, and for this game I decided to eliminate all written instructions. When you're not told the rules of the game, figuring out the rules itself becomes part of the gameplay. I definitely like this aspect of games, because it feels like you're exploring. Some people hate it, though.

It's also slightly complicated by the fact that Obb already has two layers to it - it's a tile placement puzzle game and a real-time strategy game. So by adding the third layer of figuring out the rules, I'm really risking that I'll frustrate some people. It's hard for me to convince myself to do this, but I wanted to take risks. I may learn my lesson and never try this again. :)

Also, there's currently no way to die and no way to win. The gameplay reacts to your ambition, so if you scale it back, there's no point at which you're eliminated from the game. I'm thinking of keeping it this way. I like this in terms of the story it tells (and since my games are usually heavy in dialogue, it's driving me crazy that I get to write only three letters). Obb doesn't really have goals - Obb is just Obb.

So I like it for aesthetic reasons, but I'm not so sure I like it in terms of gameplay. I like games to have goals and a sense of progression, and this is a little too open-ended for my taste. I'll see what I can think of as I'm playtesting. Hopefully I can find a happy medium.

All right, back to the task at hand. See you on the other side!

Much performance optimization done today. Using texture atlases now and mipmapping makes it look much better on various resolutions. Some new sounds, a little bit of creepy music and interactions between creeps. A few minor but nice particle effects were added too. The first missions are finished, tomorrow will mainly be polishing and making it fun + menus and mac/linux testing. Revision 350! Time to go to bed, good night... wait, DAMN, a name is still missing :(

Unfortunately, I couldn't get my act together for this Pyweek, so I decided to abandon the race and sleep for what's left of the race. There's no way I can work on this project to my satisfaction in the time that is left.

Bummer.

I'll be making some postmortem video of the project within a few days, and consider it for a Pyggy Awards project.

THROW THEM ON THE GROUND

actually, i started adding some features and now the project is not able to run, ARG.  also, i may not be able to finish at this pace.  not a bad run so far for a solo project, i think.  anyway, i'm kinda treading water at this point.