September 2023 challenge: “Dark matter”
Cosmic Prowl - What my entry is
Posted by busterbeam on 2023/09/27 19:56
I really just wanted to try. Being very ambitious having never finished a project, and didn't finish this one, we have the incomplete cosmic prowl. The aim of the game was going to be using a "window"/"cone" in front of the player character to see the "invisible" particles representing scent (or dark matter). But also all mobs/NPC's would also use this at "long range" to track targets. I was going to add an element of the Wolf (you) needing to find special items (bones?) to progress to the next level. Obviously an attack mechanic for mobs to attack each other also.
boring I know.
Dark Odyssey - Play through video
Posted by ballipilla on 2023/09/27 17:08
Posted a play through video here: https://youtu.be/E2hKCR4q7p8.
Hope you have fun with the game.
Looking forward to playing all the cool games around.
Dark Physics - Post-Dev Notes
Posted by mit-mit on 2023/09/27 12:06
Phew! Another PyWeek finished and a chance to write some notes down.
It was a bit of a tricky week, as unfortunately life really got in the road this week and I didn't really get to start the game dev in earnest until Day 5. I also had quite a bit of trouble coming up with ideas for the theme, I think it felt a bit too similar to "In the Shadows": I ended up getting inspired by Cosmo's post here, so that was the starting idea for my game and it sort of just went from there :). I tried to keep the game play concept pretty simple as I knew I wouldn't have tonnes of time to try for something more complex, but I still had lots of fun with the story :).
Looking forward to playing everyone's games!
Lost&Found - Play in browser
Posted by Proiz92 on 2023/09/27 08:09
Hi, you can play also from your browser here: https://le-proiz.itch.io/lostfound
password: <<mannaggia>>
Dark matter - Game Play
Posted by RicBin on 2023/09/26 06:37
Game Play: https://youtu.be/TswPtey_JCE
Dark Physics - Game Playthrough Posted
Posted by mit-mit on 2023/09/25 11:05
I've posted a playthrough of the game here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tThKtlkcYtI
Down The Drain - It's tubes, okay?
Posted by ambv on 2023/09/25 00:09
tl;dr
Play it yourself: https://langa.pl/downthedrain/
Playthrough video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiaM_c-nWL4
The backstory
I got really excited when Glyph pinged me to team up for PyWeek. I always admired PyWeek and people who managed to accomplish something in seven days when regular life can be a bit much on its own.
I made the theme for the game, and we had a funny little Zoom meeting where Glyph's daughter shared ideas with us that could easily turn into a few games. However, later in the week, life caught up to each one of us, and the ambitious plans went down the drain.
And now for something completely different
But I'm a stubborn guy, and I already had the music. I also gave a talk at EuroPython about generative graphics where the most well-received part was about 3D animation with PyScript. So, to salvage PyWeek #36, I decided to spend my Saturday hacking up something that's not much more than a tech demo to demonstrate this cool technology. I managed to complete just that, so this becomes our team's entry for this edition of PyWeek! Did I finish on Saturday or did I cheat a bit and only managed to get collision detection working on Sunday? Well, friends don't ask friends such questions.
OK, but is it at least on topic?
Well, you're flying in a dark tube, the title's got somewhat negative connotations... you could say it fits the "Dark Matter" theme! If you squint right 😎
Python in the browser is all I wanted for Christmas
Let's talk about the tech, that's definitely a more pleasant topic!
- this is written in PyScript, which packages Pyodide in a way that is very easy to use for new projects;
- graphics and audio bind to THREE.js, a wonderful library that makes using WebGL pretty easy;
- but there is no JavaScript in this project, it's all Python 3.11!
There are some fantastic things about this that you might notice:
- it runs everywhere without installation, including my iPhone;
- it easily runs at 60FPS in Firefox and at a whopping 120FPS in Chrome -- remember that all logic here is written in Python;
- it looks really nice, even if I only used the most primitive pieces of THREE.js this time.
Did you at least learn anything interesting?
Sure, sure! This entire ordeal of making a game in 24 hours or so taught me many things, but in no particular order, these are some highlights:
- collision detection is a complex beast, and no algorithm is perfect;
- in space no one can hear you scream that there's actually not three but six attributes needed to position and orient an object in three dimensions;
- there are many clock domains: if you want to make your game synchronize to audio, you can't naively increment calculations in an animation frame callback, because some systems will run 60 of them per second, some 120, and some will struggle with even 30;
- JavaScript is an FFI language in Pyodide, so there are some surprises like the fact that you need to call create_proxy() when passing callbacks so that Python's memory management doesn't destroy the function before it's called by JavaScript;
- THREE.js is very powerful but still easy to use, even though many examples available online for it no longer work because it moves very quickly in terms of API changes;
- more importantly, you can successfully write Python in the browser while reading JavaScript API docs and survive to tell the tale!
Dark matter - Finally Done
Posted by RicBin on 2023/09/24 23:23
Dark Matter Search - Game complete!
Posted by PyTM30 on 2023/09/24 23:17
I made a submission! I'm fairly happy with the concept and think I will work on it a little more. I already have a version that shows the positions of the dark matter at the end of the game but I wrote the couple of lines after the competition entry so I may upload it but not mark it final. It would be nice to be able to restart or have some progression of levels but it's currently a one and done and then you have to restart the game...
It shouldn't take long to check out the game as it's pretty short unless you just like watching the simulation.
Congratulations to everyone else that finished and thanks to the organisers.
DARKMATTERSLIPSTREAM - Diary entry for comments
Posted by zwerver on 2023/09/24 18:30
Since people can only leave comments to diary entries I'll have one here. Enjoy it!