I've just uploaded a new release with a few tweaks:

• In-game instructions screen
• Fixes to collision detection
• "Normal" game difficulty which lies between easy and hard.

Thanks for joining in the fun. I had a blast, again, and I hope you did too.

Again, congratulations to everyone who participated. You wrote a game, that's pretty darned cool :)

Uploads are open again if you'd like to upload an improved version of your game, or a new screenshot. Also list your game on pygame.org - I'm happy for you to use pyweek.org to host your game downloads.

Again, thanks for participating, and I hope to see you back for Pyweek #4 in March '07 (and possibly in January for an off-season challenge :)

ps. please feel free to advertise the challenge in any news services, forums or mailing lists you know about to help get the word out.

I've released my pyweek game onto the net a bit polished up, with psyco, and with a windows installer. Note this isn't my official entry as work was done on it after pyweek so please don't use this when judging my entry. http://chr15m.livejournal.com/38007.html

Sorry for my quietness on this subject - I've been busy elsewhere.

If you can't get a game to work, then consider a couple of guidelines:

1. Does the author of the game indicate that it should run on your platform (either implicitly or explicitly)? If they do, and the game does not work because it is broken, then you may penalise them for it if you wish (that is, rate them very low and check disqualification).
2. If you cannot get a game working because you can't make the dependencies work, then it's not really fair to penalise the authors of that game. Hassle the authors of the dependencies that are so hard to get to work.

I hope this helps clarify things.

I will revisit this area of the judging for the next challenge, most likely by including an explicit "did not work" indicator in the ratings. I will need to consider how that will affect ratings though.

A few tips for our game:

• If you're playing for the tenth time, and you don't want to see the cutscenes yet again, you can skip them by pressing Escape
• The game requires a little patience, but if you still want to play rambo, all hope is not lost. If you're quick enough and press F10 anytime during the level before the "game over" screen appears, you can move on to the next one. You won't be getting any points, though.
• But don't be too quick to skip level 10, or you'll miss a little surprise. (Hint: it has something to do with today's date)

richard:

What exactly should we vote a game if we cant play it, e.g.(there is an error in the game)?.

I know in the past people have just not voted those, or they have voted all 0's.

Should I do one of these, or is there something else I should do.

I've had an enquiry about the length of the judging period (why two weeks and not just one).

I'll re-evaluate the duration at the end of this challenge, but at the moment only 35% of eligible users have actually rated any games. Eligible users being those in a team that put in a final entry.

Of that 35% of users, no-one has rated all the games. Several have only rated one. A couple of games have been rated by 24% of users, but the average is more like about 15% of users.

If it turns out these numbers don't move much at the end of the second week, I'll reduce judging to one week.

There's a chance, of course that my posting this message will encourage some users to rate some more games. Miaow ;)

Just reading over some of the comments about our game and there seems to be a few common negative points brought up. All are fair. One comment I'd like to address is that the game is impossibly hard once you're out of training mode.

You cannot engage any enemy one on one. Every single one is more powerful than you and in a straight shootout you will be annihilated with extreme prejudice. Best tip is to know is that you are not Klingons. You can still shoot while cloaked.

Hope this improves the enjoyment of our game :)

It seems like a lot of people miss out on a feature in our game that makes it a little easier. When you're trying to catch a fly, you only see it for a second and you might lose track of where it is. That's where you need to use your ears! You will hear the firefly buzzing when it flies closer to you, and you should hear the sound move from side to side. I recommend using headphones for the best stereo effect. This should help you locate the fly and catch it. One method is to wait until the fly is almost right above you and then shoot your tongue straight up.
I hope this makes our game a little easier to play. :-)

If right clicking in The Extraterrorestrial causes the game to crash with an exception like the following:

pygame.draw.aaline(game.screen, c, r, p, 2)
ValueError: unsupported bit depth for aaline draw (supports 32 & 24 bit)

Please make sure you are running your desktop in a 24-bit or 32-bit mode.