We gathered some more info on our wiki

It's now the next pyweek, and after reading what I wrote for the game I didn't even start, I feel stupid. "Spaceship building, flying, navigation." How was that even close to *minimal*? 

*sigh* I actually want to make a game. I seriously overestimate myself. I'm just going to put a bunch of pixels on the screen and call it a game next time. 

I have uploaded a new version of Rainbow Rooms.  This one adds support for Python 3, 64-bit Linux, and (hopefully) OS X, while still supporting Python 2.6+, 32-bit Linux, and (probably) Windows.

I have also fixed the level-generation bugs.  It always terminates quickly, and there should always be a way to the goal.  It can still prevent you from going back to the starting point, though.

For those who had fun with the original, this one promises a bit more challenge.  The new maze generator tries to hide switches when it can, and each maze is longer than the last, no matter how long you play.  Yes, that means that the seamless height transitions are in, starting on level 6.

For those who didn't; sorry.  There's nothing spectacularly different about this one.  I have a few ideas, though...

So I just remembered the Pyweek judging was over and I momentarily stepped off from my day-to-day craziness to see how things went. Wow. I was very surprised to see my game on top. I guess I should definitely try going minimal more often.

I expected to get a lot of people saying it was hard, since it's complicated to calibrate a puzzle game when you know the solution, and I thought they looked hard. I'm happy to see that didn't happen. I'm really glad you guys enjoyed it. Now I'm even tempted to port it to mobile (though I don't expect to have much free time any time soon, not this year at least :( ).

Thanks for all the comments! Sorry for the lack of saving: I didn't have time to implement it, but I think you'd agree with me that having a reasonable amount levels is more important that saving. :)

Ok, back to my crazy routine. Thanks a lot everyone!

As anticipated, we prepared a full set of new levels for our last game Charon's Obol.
Just remove/rename the existing level folder and unzip this in the game directory.
Please take care of backup&remove the file game001.sav in save folder in order to reset the game.

Just as reminder, five levels from the original set have been modified in order to make them winnable with gold medal. Details in this post.

   Shunned Survivor Game Guide, by Satyrane

    Since it seems our small in-game tutorial may not be sufficient, or for those who had issues playing the tutorial, here's a brief written guide to help with the basic features of the game. There will also be a short video clip for those who find the typed word unappealing :)
    Upon landing, you'll notice at the top of your screen there is a taskbar at the very top with five options: Build, Demolish, Infiltrate, Fire Ray Gun, and Main Menu. Clicking on Build will bring up the Build menu, which contains the Resource, Offensive, Defensive, and Misc. options; Demolish will allow you to destroy any structures you have placed by approaching them and pressing the space bar; Infiltrate allows you to deploy bots in another player's base; Fire Ray Gun allows you to use the space bar to fire your characters ray gun instead of hitting the “Z” key; and Main Menu is rather self-explanatory. Selecting the Build option will bring up another menu containing the options Resource, Offensive, Defensive, and Misc. Resource contains structures that bring in additional resources; Offensive build items are the various factories that will allow you to build bots to deploy against other players; Defensive buildings include various kinds of turrets that protect your base; and Misc. has unique items that can be constructed as you progress in the game.
    In order to build, most structures require resources: you'll find the amount of each resource you possess in white numbers next to a small image at the top right of the screen (you can hover over each image to see the name of each resource type: Num nums [food], Wawa [water], Shinyium, Rust, Obtainium, and Dark Chocolate). You'll notice a small CD image with blue numbers after it; if you hover over it, you'll see the title Bytes of Research. These will come into play when you begin to do research and infiltrate other bases. 
   The first three build options available to you are the greenhouse, the turret, and the med tent. Greenhouses are free and require no resources; they will give you food and water. The turret costs a small amount of food, water, and shinyium, and it will attack enemy invaders. If you have trouble collecting the appropriate amount of shinyium at the earliest stages, killing the aliens roaming the unclaimed parts of the world will give you a small amount of resources: just go on a small killing spree, and you should be able to afford turrets. Finally, the med tent requires some food, water, and shinyium, and it increases your character's health. Once you build med tents, be sure to enter them (approach the building; when it turns a bluish shade, hit enter) at least once to get your health bonus.
    When you feel you have a sufficient amount of turrets, you'll want to enter your headquarters and select the research option “Factory” using the mouse. This will lower the shields protecting your base and will trigger an enemy attack. Between your turrets (which attack automatically) and your ray gun which your character wields, do your best to eliminate the invaders. When all enemies have been destroyed, the shields will be raised again, there will be an announcement of the success of the research attempt, and you will be able to build factories. Note: if your base is near water or some kind of unusual geography, enemies can occasionally become trapped or stranded. They must be killed for attack to be considered over; if for any reason you absolutely cannot hit the enemy with your ray gun, you'll have to close the game and trigger the attack again.
    Once you have a Factory, you'll be able to build bots: simply enter your factory, and click on the Build CheapBot icon. This requires a small amount of shinyium. Once you have at least one bot, you can attack other bases and gain more bytes; simply find another player base and select the Infiltrate option. This will bring up a screen prompting you to decide whether or not you really want to deploy bots; if so, select Fly My Pretties! In order to deploy the bots, stand next to whatever building you wish the bots to attack (the building should turn bluish) and press the “1”, “2”, or “3” keys to deploy corresponding bots (1 is for CheapBots, 2 is for QuickBots, and 3 is for StrongBots). In order to obtain bytes, however, you must bring their headquarters down to 1 health, so it's usually best to focus on the HQ. The more well-defended the base, the harder it is to destroy the enemy HQ and likewise the higher amount of bytes you can win. As you gain bytes, you'll find new research options in your headquarters; the amount of enemies as well as their strength will increase as the research levels increase; however, your defensive capabilities will increase as well as your ability to gather resources. You'll also notice you'll gain items in your Misc. category such as a radar that lets you locate your neighbors.
    This should be a pretty good guide to the running of the game; if anything remains unclear, or you have any other questions, several members of the team are usually on #pyweek (blakeohare, Cosmologicon, and Satyrane especially), and we try to check the discussion page regularly! We hope you enjoy the game, and thank you very much for playing! :)

Unfortunately we realized that a couple of gold medals looks not achievable... if confirmed (we are still trying), we'll upload the .map files that should be copied in /levels folder to fix those levels.
Anyway all the levels are winnable with at least silver medal, and you can still see the end of the game without completing all of them.


Then if you liked the game....


You'll be happy to hear that we are now working on an additional level pack.
If you mind, you can also contribute by submitting a level created by you, and we'll put it in the pack.
You may create levels taking as sample the .map files in the /levels folder.
Here is the legend:
C-Charon's Ferry
S/F-Start/Finish Docks
U/D/L/R-Directional Streams
G-Gold
X-Rock
V-Vortex
A-Swimming Soul
Q-Question Mark
.(dot)-Empty

This time I managed to submit something playable and it is a great victory for me, nevertheless the voting results. These are some comments about my experience.

Figuring out what to do

That was difficult. At first I couldn't find any idea that I could implement (both programming and art), and after that I couldn't find any idea at all. I lost the first day, and in the second day I spent some time watching some youtube videos of Spectrum, Amstrand and Amiga games.

I found some videos of games I used to play about 20 years ago (Saboteur, Trantor, Xecutor, Xevious, etc), and I started to feel nostalgic and sad because I was watching videos instead of writing code :)

Finally, the third day I started writing some base classes and implemented a basic scroll. OK, go for it: create a game.

The art

I'm not an artist. Repeat: I'm not an artist. I googled a tutorial on how to make a starfield with Gimp (yes, a tutorial... I had to repeat it 4 times to get something decent). Oh, it doesn't look that bad after all. I started drawing some spaceships with mtPaint. I knew the application, but it's the first time I've used it... it reminds me to my old Deluxe Paint II :) It's perfect for pixel art (I can even use the keyboard!).

A shot'em up sounds OK for the theme: one way trip, a suicide mission to destroy... etc. So carry on.

At this point I made my first great mistake: it's an horizontal shooter, meaning that the graphics are more complicated. After sweating bullets for two hours I had a player ship and one enemy. Then my partner noticed I wasn't using the same perspective for the player and the enemies... so I present you the spinning enemy:

 

It's far from perfect, but I can tell you is the best animation I've ever done under pressure! (and in any other way, to be honest).

I had a great time drawing the explosions, although it was pretty clear I wouldn't have enough time to make a lot of different enemies. I'm too slow :(

With the music I was lucky. I used SoundTracker about 10 years ago and it hasn't changed at all (I don't know if this is good or bad). I started with a bass line and it was easy to get a shot'em up feel. I'm happy I used some time for the music, it adds a lot to the final result.

I made some effects with Audacity and the laptop microphone, and finally I generated some extra sounds with sfxr (although my first try with mouth-generated explosions was quite nice too).

Programming

Evidently I didn't have any plan whatsoever, so I had to face a lot of problems when I was tired and after lots of hours programming (after my work day, of course) because I didn't know how how to implement what I had in my head.

One of the critical moments was when I was programming the circular hordes: according to the sprite it was a good idea that they shoot to the player, but I was getting the maths wrong because the aliens seem to have sight problems (or even worse, a drinking problem).

That was Saturday, 8 hours left, and trying to understand why your Python code for the formula of the line between two points is wrong... it's quite stressing!

I think I wasted a lot of time with that and refactoring code because I didn't know PyGame well enough. Besides I had to test the game script to see if it was playable just hours before the deadline.

Summing up

It has been a nice experience, although I think I can improve the results and (probably) make the whole process more pleasant and less stressing. So count on me for the next PyWeek (hopefully another game).

As usual we added command-line options to our run_game.py, but in this case I forgot to mention them in the README

On Linux you can toggle full-screen with F11.  If you are on Windows or OSX I think you need to run:
  run_game.py --full
to get full screen. Otherwise it's 1024x768 which on most monitors these days isn't all that big.
I remember when 800x600 carried a risk of eliminating half your potential user base, but I digress...

./run_game.py --help lists the other options.

;)