We have a very vague concept of what's to come.

Without giving away too much, it has to do with strategy.

We now have a GitHub repo.

Programmer's notes:

I have started creating a good engine. It already supports 3D rendering, texture loading and a camera.

Joystick input is in the making.

No thought has been given to creating audio yet - which is a shame.

No gameplay elements. (I implemented a cursor though - it seemed to bee somewhat important)

No actual textures have been created.

No name was found.

No AI, no intro, no tutorial, no multiplayer, no cross platform, no fun, no bugs.

Let's see if we can change that in the next couple of days.

Set up a GitHub for the challenge:

https://github.com/pvcraven/two_worlds

Over lunch I chatted with my kids about the theme of "two worlds" and, while we didn't come up with specifics for the game, they came up with some really interesting ideas which I think I'd like to use:

• There is only one world in the game, and you play the same game world but as two (very) different character's. As a result, there are, in fact, two worlds -- one for each of the points of view of the two characters.
• My kids suggested the game is set in school (NPCs being boring teachers, the school bully etc...)
• My kids suggested the two characters play the same (zero sum) game against the other sort of character. I think they mean a sort of "jocks vs nerds" type situation (but I'm not sure they even know what they mean).
• They like side scrollers "just like Mario, can't you just rip that off Dad?" ;-)
• Suggested game title from my youngest, "Ready Players 2"

Not sure how much of the above will get into the game, but I now have a game "trope" to work with (side scroller) so I know what sort of game mechanics I'll be writing -- I can flesh out the story and motivations as the week goes on.

Hmm... "Two Worlds" wasn't top of my list of great themes, but we are where we are.

Today will be spent thinking up ideas for the game in terms of what it's about, how it's played and its aims and objectives (from the players perspective).

I already have some ideas about how I want to write the game and what its "technical" and "educational" aims are:

* I'm using Dan Pope's amazing PyGame Zero and writing the code using the Mu editor.
* I aim to create a game that is simple enough that it could be used as a "template" or launch pad for teachers and beginner programmers who want to write their own games.
* The game is likely to be a single file.
* The game assets will be generated in as simple a manner as possible (i.e. something kids could easily copy).
* Post-PyWeek I'm going to write this all up into an educational resource.

But first, I need to settle on an idea for the game itself. Happiily, I'm the parent of three kids (16, 13, 10) and I'll be picking their brains over lunch about the theme of "two worlds" and some sort of name for the game. Once I have this, I'll point to a GitHub repository so people can follow how I'm getting on.

Finally, I'm really looking forward to the community aspects of this exercise: watching other games emerge, interacting with the other teams, and the ability to give awards. I think this week is going to be a LOT of fun.

Ugh, so Two Worlds was my lowest preference theme, and waking up this morning I immediately decided I didn't like the ideas I had for it.

While trying to come up with an idea, I spent some time installing Godot and Godot-Python, and I got an example working, but it's clear that the learning curve for Godot is steep. Using Python with it, which is almost undocumented, just makes that steeper. None of my ideas are simple enough that I would be able to achieve them in Godot in a week. I think the only way to come at that would be to develop some games in GDScript, Godot's built-in scripting language, first, to understand the API and capabilities.

I'm now looking at what I might be able to do with three.js. I think this is going to be a technology-driven Pyweek for me, where I work out what I can do with the technologies available rather than start from the theme and pick technologies to make my idea work.

I like the theme but I really don't know what to do.

Can make start menu. Game should be Fun and Innovative.

I am comfortable with 3d-shooters and 2d-scrollers. I don't want to make any kind puzzles.

It is possible to use 3 worlds if I start with "Look! We discovered two new worlds!"

I need to make decision as soon as possible and be Innovative.

What the differene between worlds can be?

Maybe I should make a list of world pairs then make a random choice.

- worlds with different gravity

- mirrored worlds

- universes created as quantum mechanic effects

- steampunk/cyberpunk

- microworld/macroworld

- underwater/dryworld

- underground/aboveground

- 2d/3d

- BigEndian/LittleEndian, tabs/spaces, vim/emacs, functional/imperative. War of robots than can't understand each other because of endianness. Ended by 8-bit microcontroller.

- ORCS vs GOBLINS!!! And TROLLS too!!!

I do not want to make a random choise now.

It will be side-scroller about war between world of orcs and world of goblins. Worlds will be very similar as you can guess.

Because only the Balloon will be moving, we only need to change a small part of the screen each frame. Luckily pygame handles this nicely.

Efficient screen updates with dirty rects, DirtySprite and LayeredDirty. When an object

See Quick & Dirty: Using Pygame's DirtySprite & LayeredDirty (A tutorial) for more information about pygame dirty rectangle sprites.

Now I have the basic game objects in place.

Well... they are still 'programmer art'.
The Balloon a green square, and the background just a flat blue or red so far.

The resolution I've decided on is 640x480.

I plan to draw them all by hand at this stage, and that should make the asset creation easier.

This means 320x480 for each side.

Maybe it would be fun to draw a different city for each 'level'. So on the left there would be Paris, and on the right London.

And the player has to move both Balloons through the city safely. But they only have one controller for both the Balloons!

I have split screens now.

Next up some basic balloons and some terrain.

Sun 15 Apr 2018 09:52:39 CEST

I got the name of the game, and setting up a github repo for it.

Around the Worlds in 80 days. aroundtheworlds

Jules Verne is awesome. It's one of the first books I read as a child. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_World_in_Eighty_Days

Also, I remember typing up a balloon game on c64 when I was little too.

So this is a little bit nostalgic for me. But also, I like the setting.

Next up, I'll set up my base code. Probably should have done this earlier.

This is what I hate about python... config file soup. Note to self: finish pyrelease.

Sun 15 Apr 2018 09:25:52 CEST

For my Two Worlds pyweek... I'm thinking of doing a split screen game. Where you control the avatar in both worlds. So your input has to avoid collisions in both. Controlling the hot air that goes into a balloon to make it rise. Just obstacle avoidance I guess, but sort of interesting because you have to do it in two Worlds at once.

I'm using pygame and will also try a bunch of libraries. pygame awesome libraries

Probably 'thorpy' for game menus/gui, and 'transitions' for state machines.

• thorpy
• transitions

Me and my Dad came up with the greatest game idea for "Two Worlds" before it was even picked, so I used that for our game.

The idea is a little complex, it's two different levels, with one avatar in each of the levels. You control both avatars, but you can only see one of them at a time.

Anyways, I've started building a small engine for the game, while Space has been helping me with designing some graphics and thinking up more ideas to make the game better over Google Hangouts. The engine isn't much, it basically just divides the screen into 2 seperate sections, and neither player can enter the others section, or go outside the window. It also basically just allows you to switch between which player you're looking at.

Right now, I'm calling it "Parallel", since they're both in different worlds parallel to each other. I have not cleared it with Space, but we'll see.