It's been a while since I've done anything with Python/PyGame. With the long weekend I thought I would get more done than I have, but life happened and my familial obligations kept me from doing as much work as I had hoped. I got a simple sprite loading and animating and I hope to work on loading some kind of tileset for maps. Not sure if I should look at using Tiled and a library to load the map or not. Also, I'm still not entirely sure what I want to do mechanics wise. Hmmmmm.

Day two begins with mowing the lawn. OK, so I probably should have planned that better. Still it gave me some ideas about games involving harvesters moving back and forward across the landscape! It is just a pity those don't appear in my game (yet!).

My goals for today are,

1. implement all the core game mechanics
2. get a few levels sketched out
3. first implementation of Gerty

I got more stuff done yesterday, such as gathering some resources, implementing some collision detection, and partially implementing a weapon. I still haven't added enemies, levels, or any menu screens yet. At least I made a fairly nifty status bar. I'm trying to focus a little more on graphics this time, too.

I'm kinda worried that I have too much planned for a week-long project, but I can always cut some stuff out if it comes to that :p

And my code is already a mess...

Well, it's the morning of day 2, but I'll reflect on what Ami and I got done yesterday.

The contest started Saturday night for us, and we signed up shortly after that. No real plan going into it, so we spent the night brainstorming, and once we had a vague plan I decided to compose a simple song for the main menu. Also made a github repo (https://github.com/Cynerva/jttcotm).

Before I continue, a quick summary of the concept: Journey to the Center of the Moon. It's a platformer, and the name speaks for itself. Our focus will be on exploration and atmosphere, so there likely won't be any combat. Oh, and just to remind you how stupid I am, I'm trying to do the world/level generation procedurally! YAY!

Sunday, I started with the actual implementation. A basic game loop, game states, and a working camera. Made a nice flickering star field, and a background for the lunar surface -- in hindsight, I should have focused on the player movement and foreground first.

Wanted the platforming to work with smooth terrain, so I went for a box2d approach to physics and player movement. I've never done this before, but the idea is to throw a sensor beneath the player's feet to see if they're on the ground or not. Works better than I expected!

After that, I spent the rest of the evening wrestling with the foreground of the lunar surface. Didn't really get anywhere with that. Ami made some nice sprites and animation for the player and surface features, though!

Plan for today:

1. Add player animations
2. Implement a generic chunk-based world
3. Realize I don't know what the hell I'm doing
4. Do it anyways so Ami won't beat me up

I ran off to give a repeat performance of my talk Don't Do This at the local Python Users Group tonight which kinda threw my night out of whack. I still managed to find some time to throw together some basic graphics ideas and wrestle with squirtle (the SVG library for pyglet) before throwing in the towel there and just rasterising the damn graphics in Inkscape, resulting in this amazing first gameplay screenshot:

So first day we all gathered together and spent about 6 hours only with pencils, paper and our storming brains. First there was an idea of a planet and its moons. Since we all like platformers, we decided to make a platformer, that would be played in space. The game map (2D) will contain several planets (circle shape), each with it's own gravity, and player can run and jump around those planets on its edges, just like this:



Player should be able to jump from one planet to another using some sort of platforms, thing to be invented yet.

We also came up with even more amazing idea - that if you fall in a pit on the planet, you get to the INSIDE planet, where the gravitation is opposite - you can walk on the inner edge of the planet. The inner world should also be more Earth-like, something like jungle, outside should be, on the other hand, Moon-like. This inner world idea is sort of extra, we will implement it only if we manage to make the outside world very soon...

First day finished without single line coded, that means, second day and coding is to come!

Probably some of the better progress I've made on day one of pyweek so far; also the first time that I've gone completely OOP in my game (I've used classes before now, but only with a healthy dose of structured code).

Features so far though:

• Pathfinding - I coded this about an hour before the start, so I was able to remember how it worked to recode it fairly quickly once had pyweek started properly - without the broken heuristics I had before...
• Workers Slightly randomise their path, so they don't always take the same route
• Workers - they can't do a huge amount yet
• Buildings - can be placed, and the pathfinding recognises them and doesn't allow movement through them
• Resources - Just an outline so far to be honest

Day 1

Settling on a game idea was quickly done this time.  Probably because of the theme "Moon".  I had the idea of making a game that takes place on the surface of the moon.  Maybe something where one has to go around and collect some materials / samples from the moon and bring it back to earth?

The words "vehicle" and "expedition" came into my mind.  I looked up how the vehicles that are used to do space exploration on other planets or moons are called or have been called.  They are called "Lunar Rover's" or "Moon Rover's" (English is not my first language).

I then decided to develop a game based on my idea.

Game overview ( Note:  This is just what I am aiming at.  Things might still change )

In this game, the player, who controls the Lunar Rover 47 has to collect samples in different areas of the moon.  Each area has different scenery and samples.  After all samples of an area have been collected, the player moves on to the next area.  (Sidenote:  An "Area" is a level).
But the player has to be aware of obstacles, such as "aliens", walls or other things.  Each area is decorated by beautiful scenery usually found on the moon (or related places).
Luckily, the Lunar Rover 47 is equipped with the GREPLAC (GREen Proton LAser Cannon), the newest invention, with which it can defend itself.
The Lunar Rover 47 is equipped with a radar, solar-panels, a board computer and a few super-bright LED's.
The Radar helps finding samples and other objects.  In fact, every object in a specified tracking area can be found.  But using it needs a lot of energy.  Luckily, the solar-panel provides energy, so the batteries can be charged up again.

Anyways, I do not want to go on and on telling fairy tales; so here is a list of what I have accomplished on day 1:


Graphics

Moon Ground / Terrain

Since the game takes place on the moon, I needed to have some sort of terrain that 'might' resemble, or at least, remind somebody of deserted places.  So I decided to draw a Moon Terrain.  I couldn't have done that without the help of this video:
How to make rock texture in GIMP - YouTube

As one can see, I used GIMP for that.  I was satisfied with the results.  I learned something new =).


Lunar Rover

I drew the "Lunar Rover 47" in Inkscape.  It took me a long time to get it the way I would like it at least a bit.  I am happy with the results.  It has solar panels, a computer, a sensor 2 lights, aswell as a few super-bright LED's.
I produced many .PNG files with the LED's on and off, as I wanted it to be animated in the game, to give the game some "life".


Control Panel

Well, it was getting late when I started working on the control panel.  But I just wanted to get a pre-version of the control panel done, so I could implement a simple "Radar System" into the game, which was what I was aiming for on day 1.
After about 1 hour it was done.  I knew I had to add stuff to it, but it was okay for what I originally intended to do.  I created 4 images, as the control panel of the Lunar Rover 47 will be animated, too.


Lunar Rover GREPLAC Projectile

Made with Inkscape:  A shimmering green projectile that can be fired by the Lunar Rover 47.  After doing that I went to bed at 4.00 AM and slept until 8.30 AM.

Programming

I created the following class and files for the game:

• main.py - Contans the game-loop.  Starting point of the game.
• Animated_Sprite.py - A class that supports animation.
• Lunar_Rover.py - The class for the Lunar Rover 47
• Lunar_Rover_Control_Panel.py - The control panel of the Lunar Rover 47
• Lunar_Rover_Shot.py - The class for the projectiles, which can be fired by the Lunar Rover 47
• Radar.py - The class for the radar of the Lunar Rover 47
• Scrolling_Ground.py - The class for the scrolled background.  This represents the terrain of the different moon areas.
• Test_Object.py - A simple pygame Sprite class, used for testing the class Radar.py
• constants.py - Contains the settings and preferences of the game which are not likely to change.
• helpers.py - Contains global functions that find use in many different code-files.

Okay, that is it for now.  Thanks for reading =).

concept as good as finished
now some implementation planing