September 2012 challenge: “One Way Trip”
One Whale Trip - MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan package (N950 and N9)
Posted by thp on 2012/09/17 09:06
A package for MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan is available here:
http://o.thp.io/tmp/pyweek15/onewhaletrip_1.0.0_all.deb
http://o.thp.io/tmp/pyweek15/onewhaletrip_1.0.0_all.deb
Charon's Obol - Divertissement
Posted by circusblatta on 2012/09/16 23:48
Stranded Survivor - A few notes about Shunned Survivor
Posted by Cosmologicon on 2012/09/16 17:14
Blake might give a proper postmortem, but I just wanted to post in case anybody has any bug reports.
Yes, this is a massively multiplayer online tower defense game. A lot of the logic is done server-side, so the results of your actions don't always show up right away. Be a little patient with the interface.
No, you can't interact with other players in realtime, but you're all in the same world, and you can try to invade bases that they've created. If you can't find anyone who's at your level, find the latest world map on this download list.
There is a lot of complexity to this game, but also a lot of content, so I hope you'll think your patience is rewarded. If you need any tips, we can probably help. Thanks for playing!
Yes, this is a massively multiplayer online tower defense game. A lot of the logic is done server-side, so the results of your actions don't always show up right away. Be a little patient with the interface.
No, you can't interact with other players in realtime, but you're all in the same world, and you can try to invade bases that they've created. If you can't find anyone who's at your level, find the latest world map on this download list.
There is a lot of complexity to this game, but also a lot of content, so I hope you'll think your patience is rewarded. If you need any tips, we can probably help. Thanks for playing!
Run! - Postmortem
Posted by Ermahgerd on 2012/09/16 14:29
So now that the week of development is over, I thought that I should take a few moments to reflect on the past week, and go through the various parts of the development that I was happy with, as well as the parts that I would do differently next time.
First, I have to say that overall I'm extremely pleased with the final product. I managed to throw together what, to me, is a really fun game in less than a week. I got sick early on in the week after nursing my girlfriend back to heath, but it didn't slow me down too much. I was able to get a few days off from work, and class due to the illness, and used a lot of this time to work on the game. My girlfriend was extremely helpful and supportive during the week.
Pygame was a huge part of the rapid development. It's such an easy to use framework, and well documented. Not once did I need to consult with an outside source, such as Google, to find out how to accomplish something specific. I did run into a performance issue in the beginning however, which forced me to change the entire direction of the project. I don't know if this was poor design, or a limitation of the framework, but it's definitely going to affect my designs going forward with games using Pygame. It's also going to push me to exploring other frameworks, such as Pyglet, especially when I want to push big ideas into my games.
The week before PyWeek has started, I was doing some research on handling game states for my last game, Kitty Vacuum Dodge. I asked about it in the Pygame IRC channel, and Idlework opened the doors to State Machines. This had a HUGE effect on the code design (and will on future games). The modular nature of the game states allows you to easily customize the states, as well as easily handle initialization and cleanup when necessary.
One thing that was sorely lacking in my development was planning. Most, if not all features of the game were made up on the fly, and it shows in the code. It got a little tricky when implementing elements later on that relied on previously implemented elements, because the elements relied on weren't being designed with that in mind. That resulted in a lot of back and forth tweaking, and some less than elegant "hacks" to force things to work the way I wanted them to. Midway through the week, I did manage to take a few hours to refactor some of the code, and fix a lot of the spaghetti, and circular dependencies, but I still think it could have been better. In the end however, it works, and I suppose that is what matters the most.
Something that kinda worked and kinda didn't was the art. I managed to put together all of the art on my own, and it works, but isn't quite what I had envisioned the game looking like. I haven't had any prior experience looking for/using free art resources on the web, and didn't want to waste any time doing so during development. The current art definitely gets the point across, and has the benefit of being made with a specific purpose in mind. It was just too simple, and I wanted the graphics to "pop" a bit more than they do. I also wish I could have added a few more backgrounds to the game.
Music and sounds ended up being a complete afterthought. I had forgotten all about them, and had no plans originally to add any. During the last 48 hours, when I was spending time doing tweaks, and adding a help screen, I decided to take some time to look around for some free music and FX. Pygame made adding them extremely simple, in fact, finding the right sounds was harder than actually putting them in the game. I'm so very happy with the background music loops.
In general, this week was a success for me, as all I really wanted to do was complete a game in a given time frame, and I managed to do that, and exceed all expectations for what I could accomplish during that time. I will certainly be participating in future PyWeeks, and try to make each successive entry bigger, and better :)
- Llortus
First, I have to say that overall I'm extremely pleased with the final product. I managed to throw together what, to me, is a really fun game in less than a week. I got sick early on in the week after nursing my girlfriend back to heath, but it didn't slow me down too much. I was able to get a few days off from work, and class due to the illness, and used a lot of this time to work on the game. My girlfriend was extremely helpful and supportive during the week.
Pygame was a huge part of the rapid development. It's such an easy to use framework, and well documented. Not once did I need to consult with an outside source, such as Google, to find out how to accomplish something specific. I did run into a performance issue in the beginning however, which forced me to change the entire direction of the project. I don't know if this was poor design, or a limitation of the framework, but it's definitely going to affect my designs going forward with games using Pygame. It's also going to push me to exploring other frameworks, such as Pyglet, especially when I want to push big ideas into my games.
The week before PyWeek has started, I was doing some research on handling game states for my last game, Kitty Vacuum Dodge. I asked about it in the Pygame IRC channel, and Idlework opened the doors to State Machines. This had a HUGE effect on the code design (and will on future games). The modular nature of the game states allows you to easily customize the states, as well as easily handle initialization and cleanup when necessary.
One thing that was sorely lacking in my development was planning. Most, if not all features of the game were made up on the fly, and it shows in the code. It got a little tricky when implementing elements later on that relied on previously implemented elements, because the elements relied on weren't being designed with that in mind. That resulted in a lot of back and forth tweaking, and some less than elegant "hacks" to force things to work the way I wanted them to. Midway through the week, I did manage to take a few hours to refactor some of the code, and fix a lot of the spaghetti, and circular dependencies, but I still think it could have been better. In the end however, it works, and I suppose that is what matters the most.
Something that kinda worked and kinda didn't was the art. I managed to put together all of the art on my own, and it works, but isn't quite what I had envisioned the game looking like. I haven't had any prior experience looking for/using free art resources on the web, and didn't want to waste any time doing so during development. The current art definitely gets the point across, and has the benefit of being made with a specific purpose in mind. It was just too simple, and I wanted the graphics to "pop" a bit more than they do. I also wish I could have added a few more backgrounds to the game.
Music and sounds ended up being a complete afterthought. I had forgotten all about them, and had no plans originally to add any. During the last 48 hours, when I was spending time doing tweaks, and adding a help screen, I decided to take some time to look around for some free music and FX. Pygame made adding them extremely simple, in fact, finding the right sounds was harder than actually putting them in the game. I'm so very happy with the background music loops.
In general, this week was a success for me, as all I really wanted to do was complete a game in a given time frame, and I managed to do that, and exceed all expectations for what I could accomplish during that time. I will certainly be participating in future PyWeeks, and try to make each successive entry bigger, and better :)
- Llortus
Walkway - Walkway: Postmortem
Posted by Tee on 2012/09/16 13:51
I've been very busy these past few weeks, since I've had some major changes to my life recently. Nevertheless, I'm quite satisfied with how this Pyweek turned out for me.
Fortunately, I was able to spare a day (not without some sacrifice). I don't want to lose my Pyweek streak after all. :) So I figured I would make something very small and minimal for a day. I felt making a puzzle with a minimal mechanic would be interesting. The tie to the theme might be a little hard to see: it's about constructing a "one way" path. The rules are fairly simple: you should pass through every yellow node and cross twice every orange node, and you cannot cross yourself except on orange nodes.
I think this game turned out more interesting than I was expecting. When I started this morning, I thought this mechanic was too shallow to generate hard puzzles. Thankfully, I was wrong. It may not be deep, but it's also not too shallow.
I hope it's not too hard though. I haven't had anyone else playtest it and it's really hard to calibrate a puzzle by yourself (since you know the answer already :)). If you manage to finish it (or not), please let me know. If you find it's too easy, add GOOD_LUCK to the list of levels at the end of level.py and good luck. :)
It was quite a nice experience to do something with a small scope this time. I guess I should try this more often.
Anyway, once again, congratulations to everyone who finished and thanks to Richard for hosting yet another Pyweek. I'm fairly sure I won't have time to judge your games, unfortunately. :(
See you all next Pyweek!
Fortunately, I was able to spare a day (not without some sacrifice). I don't want to lose my Pyweek streak after all. :) So I figured I would make something very small and minimal for a day. I felt making a puzzle with a minimal mechanic would be interesting. The tie to the theme might be a little hard to see: it's about constructing a "one way" path. The rules are fairly simple: you should pass through every yellow node and cross twice every orange node, and you cannot cross yourself except on orange nodes.
I think this game turned out more interesting than I was expecting. When I started this morning, I thought this mechanic was too shallow to generate hard puzzles. Thankfully, I was wrong. It may not be deep, but it's also not too shallow.
I hope it's not too hard though. I haven't had anyone else playtest it and it's really hard to calibrate a puzzle by yourself (since you know the answer already :)). If you manage to finish it (or not), please let me know. If you find it's too easy, add GOOD_LUCK to the list of levels at the end of level.py and good luck. :)
It was quite a nice experience to do something with a small scope this time. I guess I should try this more often.
Anyway, once again, congratulations to everyone who finished and thanks to Richard for hosting yet another Pyweek. I'm fairly sure I won't have time to judge your games, unfortunately. :(
See you all next Pyweek!
OWT - Windows bundle uploaded
Posted by reidrac on 2012/09/16 11:02
Although I made the final submission yesterday, I gave it a go in an old Windows laptop my partner has around here and I've uploaded a ZIP file with a Windows bundle.
It is exactly the same game that has been py2exe-processed to provide an easier experience in Windows systems.
Disclaimer: it's been quite painful and it's my first time with py2exe, so I'd appreciate if you use the source code version in case the Windows bundle doesn't work for you.
To my surprise the performance of the game in Windows is notably better than in Linux, comparing an old 1GB Celeron bloated laptop with my regular 3GB i3. It's probably something related to graphic card drivers I guess :(
PS: I believe this is "legal" (I got a mail from Richard saying that I have 24 hours to upload the game). If is it not, please let me know and I'll delete the file!
It is exactly the same game that has been py2exe-processed to provide an easier experience in Windows systems.
Disclaimer: it's been quite painful and it's my first time with py2exe, so I'd appreciate if you use the source code version in case the Windows bundle doesn't work for you.
To my surprise the performance of the game in Windows is notably better than in Linux, comparing an old 1GB Celeron bloated laptop with my regular 3GB i3. It's probably something related to graphic card drivers I guess :(
PS: I believe this is "legal" (I got a mail from Richard saying that I have 24 hours to upload the game). If is it not, please let me know and I'll delete the file!
Rainbow Rooms - Closing thoughts
Posted by eswald on 2012/09/16 01:42
My original roguelike idea proved too large for one week, particularly given that I hadn't yet programmed anything similar. On Wednesday, I thought up this maze idea.
Sadly, my early-week work on seamless level transitions didn't make it into the final submission, because my maze generator doesn't yet know how to handle multi-level mazes. In the last few hours, it was either that or the colored doors, and the latter are essential for following the theme.
I would also have liked to put in a few sound effects, particularly for finishing the level, and a couple of counters for steps taken and switches flipped per level.
That said, there's something compelling about solving the mazes, with or without the doors.
Sadly, my early-week work on seamless level transitions didn't make it into the final submission, because my maze generator doesn't yet know how to handle multi-level mazes. In the last few hours, it was either that or the colored doors, and the latter are essential for following the theme.
I would also have liked to put in a few sound effects, particularly for finishing the level, and a couple of counters for steps taken and switches flipped per level.
That said, there's something compelling about solving the mazes, with or without the doors.
Uncertain At Best 2 - all not done, just in time!
Posted by Evdude on 2012/09/16 01:41
DNF
I was close to uploading something playable (although, nowhere near a finished game), but I ended up having to go to work unexpectedly around the 3 hours to go point. :(
If anyone whats to play what little of it there is, I will be working on it a little more and could upload it as a non-final or something.
I was close to uploading something playable (although, nowhere near a finished game), but I ended up having to go to work unexpectedly around the 3 hours to go point. :(
If anyone whats to play what little of it there is, I will be working on it a little more and could upload it as a non-final or something.
um, idk - Postmortem
Posted by bitcraft on 2012/09/16 01:09
This [py]week:
I simply did not have enough time to get the game finished I didn't even have time on the weekends.
Positive points:
I simply did not have enough time to get the game finished I didn't even have time on the weekends.
Positive points:
- I got a few hours to work on art, which is challenging for me, but interesting
- The hover bot uses the game's physics engine to fly, which i think is cool
Moon Pytrol - Submitted: one fine game
Posted by jtrain on 2012/09/16 00:41
Had a great time this Pyweek. We finished strong, and packagee up a treat of a game for you. The only requirement is Pygame this time around.
http://youtu.be/kIclSSHcEQU (a teaser)
We tried very hard to use Python 3 but found that there were quite a few hurdles to getting a copy up and running on mac osx with pyglet or pygame. It took me a good few hours to work them out, so I figured that I wouldn't put anyone else into that same position!
The game comes with a requirements.txt file, useful for those of you using a virtualenv.
I'll end with a question for everyone else. Having made this game, is it easy to put into a form that anyone as tech savy as my Dad could download and play? I've used the py2exe in the past. py2exe is useful, but with so many windows versions available now (Windows XP all the way through to Windows 8) I'm not 100% certain of it working every time, and it providing a pleasant user experience.
http://youtu.be/kIclSSHcEQU (a teaser)
We tried very hard to use Python 3 but found that there were quite a few hurdles to getting a copy up and running on mac osx with pyglet or pygame. It took me a good few hours to work them out, so I figured that I wouldn't put anyone else into that same position!
The game comes with a requirements.txt file, useful for those of you using a virtualenv.
I'll end with a question for everyone else. Having made this game, is it easy to put into a form that anyone as tech savy as my Dad could download and play? I've used the py2exe in the past. py2exe is useful, but with so many windows versions available now (Windows XP all the way through to Windows 8) I'm not 100% certain of it working every time, and it providing a pleasant user experience.