We've finished our PyWeek game, check it out!

The Retirement of Diomedes

I've just uploaded the first version of the game. Unlike my previous individual entries, this entry uses Pyglet 1.2.4, which is included in the download. If you haven't done so, remember to install or update AVBin before playing since Pyglet depends on it for playing sound and music. Let me know either on #pyweek or on this diary post if you're having problems getting the game to run.

Overall, we're pretty happy with how the game turned out. There are some parts of the game's code that could use some optimization, sadly, so there might be some slowdown, especially on later levels or on hard difficulty. Despite that, we hope you enjoy the game :)

Well life had different plans for me this week so the game has not really progressed since Sunday. I had so much fun in the few hours I did spend on this game. I liked the concept of a life simulator game in the aftermath of an apocalypse and I got to mess around with sqlite and PyCharm.

Code is on

Alright, I've submitted a final file. The game is complete and playable but I wish I could have had another day to really pretty it up. The important thing to me is that the game is done, playable, winnable and it works! I feel proud of it and I will probably pick it up and work on it some more in the future. I like the concept a lot and I think I could make something neat out of it.

This was a very busy week for me, with rehearsals until 7 every day and a presentation for school to prepare, but I managed to get a game out of it. It is very incomplete, but is playable. One of the nice things about making a text-based game is that there are fewer places for bugs to creep in, which saved a lot of time. Anyway, try to have fun playing this game.

(PS: In the source code, there are some files for graphical adventures using curses. If someone wants to wok on making those work, go ahead!)

I had a test week this week, so I didn't think I would get to do Pyweek. In the end I opted for a simple game that I could make in two days. I know the jump from "the aftermath" to post zombie-apocalypse is not a very original one, but I think this is a fun little game that captures the desperation of surviving in the aftermath of an apocalypse and the impending dread of running out of Molotov cocktails very well. I ended up using a lot of the knowledge I acquired during the test week, especially in physics, in the game. I think Pyweek ended up being a better judge of how much I understand what I learned during the semester than the test week was. I am also quite pleased with the animations, even if they are quite simplistic. There are a few tweaks I would like to make before the deadline. Hopefully I can upload a slightly improved game tomorrow.

The game is almost finished - and I have submitted a first version, just in case I'm not able to do so until the end of sunday. I have coded all the day - but still, music and sounds are missing, as well as some improvements in the graphics... I will work hard before midnight in order to include basic sound effects and atmosphere music - which have already been chosen. Testing of the program is a pain. On my computer, all works well, but on some others, it crashes without obvious reason. I "fixed" the problem by converting the script to .exe file.

I was able to finish my second Pyweek game in total. Instead of having goal to win I try to improve my games development knowledge. So here you go!

My goal this year was to learn vector graphics with Inkscape (yeah, all graphics are made by my in this game, without using any others sprites or other media).

About the game

You are solder (like in Medal of Honor game) put in the place without weapons and enemies all around you. You need to find way to get weapon first and kill enemies taking bullets from the map.

What I have learned this week

Here are couple of things I have learned:

• Angle calculation and player sprites rotation with pygame.
• Proper setup and calculation for FPS.
• AI responsiveness based on things they currently "see".
• Optimisation and profiling using cprofile. I have increased map like 4 times and FPS dropped from 60 to 30. Using cprofile Python module I restored back to 60 FPS and even increased map couple time after then without FPS drop.
• Camera following.
• Many nice things to do with Inkscape. As Photoshop lower it is very hard to allow other editors be in my life ;)

I hope you will enjoy this, even this game is not so professional. And if you would like to see source code it's here: my GitHub profile (pull requests are welcome).

So what will be next year?

I will try to do isometric game (so yeah, probably will stay with Pygame). There are so many game techniques to try.

Known bugs

I have optimised game couple of times, and made it too much optimised. Enemies in the game not moving or doing anything once they are out of the screen. So yeah, just stay in the same place, and you will notice that when enemies will go out of screen, they never come back :D

For the next time

Great thing that I have learned for the next time is that I started game all wrong. Instead of focusing on the idea and planing what features game will have, it would be much better to start own MVP from drawings. Once you have all elements on the screen painted and you think it's looking good and peoples will play it - only then you should start doing the game.

I finished the gameplay and then decided - hey, I need to add "game opening", mission pages and "game over" screens. Well, my code needed to be hacked for these things, so it's not very nice. If would have prepared those screens as the first thing when planing the game - it would be much easier to think in the future. So if you are reading this, please consider it for the next time you will start the game.

# Now is nearly 23:00 at my local time, and i submitte my final work. Everyday after work, i nearly spend 4 hours or more to type my code and do the debug. I know the final work is still seemed sily, a little naive. But i do not care it(maybe you care about it...). because I can make a game in week, and i did it all by myself, and now i can share it to others. For me it is a great progress, i can not using English language in the correctly way, not to mention Python language. I hope i can join the pyweek 22, and next time, I will make a better game! P.S I can not fix the exist bugs in the code, is there anyone can help me? I could invite you to eat Henan's stewed noodles.

Well folks, it's here, right here, and encase you missed it here. That's right, finished with 14:45 to go. Maybe I should go check it works on Windows. Yea, that might be worth considering! Any way, download it here and enjoy.