I think it's a good idea to respond to feedback en-masse, so I took a little bit of time to do the same. BTW, I added an updated version of my game that you can find on the project page. It adds some polish to the game and the interface, and makes it more like a game that one could keep and play on the desktop.

Anyways, onto the feedback!

the good thing is you only need to remember one button :)
Well, I'm glad to hear there's one good thing. ;)

Its simple but really fun.
Yay fun!

Well, even though I did give it low scores, the game isn't too bad. It's just really simple, and it's kinda not very rewarding to play since I can't actually win an iPod in this one. ;-)
Yeah, I hear you about the rewarding part. I put some work into making a fun animated win screen in the updated version, so hopefully that makes it slightly more rewarding to play.

reasonably fun for the simple game it is
So glad to hear it, thanks!

Quite impressive considering the time it was done in :) great work!
Thanks. :)

The game is simple. It's reasonably fun to play, but I still greatly prefer tetris. It would've been more fun if it were a last minute tetris clone. :) The game is very simple. It works and has a startup screen and everything, but it makes it difficult to reward production points. By the author's admission this is a clone, so no innovation rewarded.
I guess Tetris *could* fit the theme, since ending up at the top is inevitable (it's impossible to not lose eventually) -- though I just really felt that Stacker fit the theme so well, and I had been wanting to clone this game for a while. Glad to hear your vote for making more puzzle games though -- maybe I'll try another one some time. :)

It was too fast for me.
I'll chalk this one up to game improvement ideas that I still need to put in -- to put in variable difficulty.

7 minutes total addiction :)
Thanks for the encouraging report. :)

very nice all things considering. It would be nice, though, if you could have a difficulty setting, it is a mite bit hard at times ;)
Another vote for difficulty selection -- thanks! It's a mite small game, but I'm glad you seem to have enjoyed it.

This thing is tough! Fun for a game cranked out in a day.
Thanks! Fun is what I was going for.

It just needs some sound.
Arrgh. You know, you're right? We'll put that up as another feature request I really need to implement.

The simplicity of the game is nice here. Hard, though. :)
Thanks! I was really hoping to show people how it's possible to make a simple and fun game in a short amount of time, and how flashy graphics and ornate plots don't always equal fun. Still, there was much I could have done to make this game better, as you have pointed out (chiefly the difficulty thing, again)

I like simple control schemes. This game seemed to get too hard too quick.
Glad you liked the controls! I had fun designing it to be a one-switch game, since it's a concept I've been aware of for a long time, but I hadn't ever made a game that worked with it before.

Addictive, and a teensy bit maddening!
Thanks for the complimentary words -- they are appreciated!

Good hustle :)
hehe -- thanks. :) That was certainly much of the fun for me, though the lack of polish that another few hours could have added certainly shows.

Very fun, but very hard, It would have been nice to have some kind of variation.
That's an interesting idea. I guess you mean something like more game types on the same/similar concept? That hadn't occurred to me before, but I like the possibilities.
Or perhaps you're talking about putting in difficulty levels, in which case, I'll add your vote to the tally. :)

can't take my stack up to the red part. also it's annoying to have to re-run game.py to restart the game. Anyway, the done is good. Expect to see you on the next pyweek!!
Thanks! I do anticipate being in the next PyWeek. About the re-running the game to start another game, I think you're totally right. That's one of the big suggestions I heard early on, and was one of the first things I implemented in the newly updated version.

I don't like arcade prize machine games, mostly because they're repetitive and unfair.
haha. Repetitive and unfair -- sounds like my game. Well, it's okay that my game isn't for you, and I appreciate the honest opinion -- it helps me know how large of an audience there is for this sort of game.

Very nice considering you did it all on the last day!
Thanks! :)

mmm....
ahhh...

a little one dimensional...
True! After all, y is the only valid vector...

graphics and stuff around will make it a better game
Thanks for the comments and suggestions for improvement! I tried updating the graphics a bit to make it more visually consistent, I added a more graphically-flashy win screen, I added animated falling blocks so that you can see where your block placement missed the tower, and I now show your tower on win/lose screens so that you can see how you did. It's not a ton of graphics updates, but I hope it helps a bit. Thanks again for the suggestion!

Awesome game, shame it was used though.
Used, as in a clone already? Yeah -- most games these days are clones in one way or another -- so much of what makes a game feel "new" and "fresh" depends on how much better one impelments the old ideas. Admittedly, I didn't do a very good job of making Slacker go above and beyond Stacker, but ah well -- it was supposed to be a simple game, and I guess I succeeded in that regard.

Great game, just needed a little more polish.
Thanks! Polish is what I tried to add in the updated version, though there are certainly still a couple of more things I'd like to make shinier.

Great little game!
Thanks! This totally sums up what I was shooting for, and I'm so glad to hear your kind words.

VERY hard! Anyone who wins an iPod by playing this thoroughly deserves it!
Haha. I totally agree. :) If nothing else, this game has assurred me that I probably don't want to waste money playing it on the arcade machine anymore. Even though I've gotten a lot better through the game, I'm not really sure that I could win under pressure, even with $20 or $30 to blow.

Not bad for a day's work...
Thanks! It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to the next competition.

Waited until the last day? Slacker!
haha. Truer words couldn't be spoken...

Nice idea. fun game tried it for quite some time but could not complete it :(
Sorry to hear it! If it's any encouragement, it took me a while before I could beat the game, and I haven't heard very many reports of other people being able to beat it (less than half a dozen others). In case you're interested, the new version makes it easier to start new games, as well as gives you better feedback as to if you hit the spacebar too early or too late.

Wow, this game is really challenging! I couldn't stop playing it though ;) Very fun, but too bad it's a clone.
Yeah, a pretty blatant clone. I didn't do very much to improve on the original game much more than make it so that it doesn't cost $1 to play. :)

too difficult for me :)
Sorry to hear it -- I'll chalk this one up as another vote for variable difficutly levels. I'm not sure how to do that without breaking my one-switch paradigm, but ah well -- I'll see what I can do.

Addictive describes this game very well. I'm off still trying to get to level 15... ^^
So very glad to hear it! Here's to hoping you make it. :)

A bit too simple to my taste but fun, nonetheless.
Thanks for the honesty! Glad you enjoyed it a little bit, despite not being in your preferred genre.

Well, it's slightly addictive. Which isn't really bad for a game made in one day, I'll give you that. A menu with options for a new try and exit should've fit the schedule.
I think that you're right -- if I hadn't blown my last half hour trying to package it with py2exe (unsuccessfully), I probably could have gotten auto-game-restarting in. Regardless, it's in the updated version, but it didn't help all of you guys for the judging period. Thanks so much for playing and testing my game though (even in its unpolished state)!

Well, I don't find it too addictive...
Whether or not the above comment is sarcastic, I still appreciate the feedback. :)

Very addicting. Requires good eye-hand coordination. I love that.
Yay! Thanks for the feedback!

Quite nice game actually, ESPECIALLY concidering that you just used one day, but it's not really something I would play normally :) Clean, simple and nice.
Thanks so much! The small scope of the game is one of my favorite things about it, and I'm glad that you thought well of it -- even though it's not your normally preferred style of game.

Did you really code this in one day? I hate it but it's not bad for one day of work. If this were a 24 hour contest it would probably get a higher rating :) I don't really like these sorts of games.
haha, yup. I agree -- the size of the game was a little small for a one-week competition, but I'm glad that I was able to get something playable. I've said it to other reviewers, but I want to reiterate that I appreciate your honesty in letting me know whether or not you like these sorts of games -- that kind of feedback really helps me get a feel for how wide the appeal is for these sorts of games.

Not bad for "last minute" I thought the concept of the game was creative.
Thanks! It was like a lightbulb just went off in my head while dozing on Saturday morning, just how well this game concept fit the theme -- when I realized that, I didn't have much of an option other than to try and hammer it out. :)

well, fun game. you admit it's a pure clone :-) have to look into one-switch games myself
Yup -- pure clone. The arcade game has two buttons, but I decided to make it a one-switch, just to see if I could limit myself to that paradigm. It's a really neat constraint to try to work within.

My new get rich quick scheme is to sell iPods I win from Stacker machines down at the mall. Too bad you have to relaunch the program every time you want to play again.
As far as get rich quick shemes, that one sounds pretty good. Thanks for the improvement suggestion! Your wish is my command -- it's now in the updated version.

pretty cool game. I've never played anything like it, but I can see where this would be addicting. Thanks!
Thank you!

The real game is rigged. This game is hard but a bit of fun. Graphics are smooth but I can only give you so much because this is a rather simple game.
No worries there -- I didn't expect to win the competition, but rather was aiming exactly to provide just a "bit of fun".

Annoyingly addictive. Except not really addictive. I grind against such careful timing games. It is cool that you wrote it in a busy day though.
Haha. I know what you mean about the addictive part -- I find myself addicted-yet-not-addicted to this game myself. Also, glad to hear that you thought the development circumstances were cool -- that just added to the whole flavor of PyWeek for me, and made it such an enjoyable day.

Wow, nice game in one day...Addictive :) Btw that 1-switch game is interesting stuff, I wasn't aware of that problem...Hmm maybe I should consider making such a game...Nice stuff.
Thanks for the feedback! :) I do encourage you to try and limit yourself to designing a game that can be played under certain circumstances -- whether by those who are visually impaired, with just a single hand, or as in this case, with just one button. There's a whole opportunity for making more accessible games, and as a developer, I find it an interesting set of challenges to put myself underneath in order to polish my own skills.

I miss some sound and music on this one. It is actually addictive, though.
About the audio -- you know, you're exactly right. At least sound effects, but you bring up a good point about music too. Thanks!

My poor space bar!
haha. :) Thanks for the laugh.

Damn hard!
This comment also makes me laugh. I'll take it as a mix between a compliment and a vote for adjustable difficulty levels.

Thanks so much for all of the feedback, everyone! It is really very much appreciated, and I'm so glad to hear that so many of you got some enjoyment out of my game.

I really like PyWeek, because it's such a wonderful test bed of ideas and experimentation -- playing through over 50 games, you can really get a feel for what actually makes a game fun, what one's development priorities should be, and how to pace yourself when working under constraints. It was a fantastic contest and learning experience for me. The goals of my project were to create a simple yet fun game, and to focus on fun rather than flashy graphics or an epic plot. I've certainly learned where I should have put more polish, and I see several things I could have done better (even within the time constraints). Still, no regrets, and I look back with only good memories of this season's PyWeek. Thanks everyone for rating my game! And a big huge thanks out to Richard (and the other helpers) for organizing yet another PyWeek.

Cheers!

--clint

Hey -

Make sure to add your game to pygame.org (even if it doesn't use pygame) - I'll update the website in a couple of days to have the "featured games" be the top few entries that are added.

- Phil

Well pyweek #4 is over... and christ did I rank awfully. Wow people really didn't like my game :! I even got a reply that was simply "I really didn't like this game." Well for all the supporters, thanks, for all the haters, poo on you.

Original Plan: Well I originally figured that I could come up with a Gauntlet/RPG style game, where you level up, pick up items from monsters, gain levels, all that good stuff. So essentially you start at the first level of the tower, then as you advance you gain levels, and you can go back down levels. This way you could like fight bosses, gain cool objects, all that good stuff.

What I accomplished: Well, after tackling the tile engine, the world scrolling, object-oriented monsters and items, collisions between tiles, keys, weapons, etc. I realized that the 7 days were up. Working on everything by myself was extremely time-consuming, the art, the music (made it myself with DrPetter's Musagi :) :) ), the code, everything.. So what I wound up with by Friday at midnight was pretty much a gauntlet clone. I had a ghetto level-editor going, a long list of to-dos, and a game that was near impossible to beat. Saturday I woke up late, had about 6 hours to catch up so I came up with a few bug fixes, a few other things, and came up with a final 20 minutes before the contest was over.

What went well : Well I honestly learned about 50 times more than my Urban Ninja game, and I really added some object oriented goodness into this thing. I made a level editor, I coded up some pixel collision tile detection, I made things work!

What went wrong : I definitely wanted a lot more with this game. I was trying to get A LOT done in a short time span with a lot of stuff in between. I had classes from 8-5 every day, I had a fiancee I was visiting on Friday till Sunday, it was a nutty week. So with just gameplay going for me, I came up with something, not quite what i wanted though.

What I want for next time : Well I'm definitely going to try to join a team, without the art and music I think I could have gotten a lot more done. I heard some people suggest Phil's PGU engine, a very good engine. With his new additions for 2-d platformers its going to be amazing. I really wanted to learn all this on my own though, tile engines, world scrolling, level editors, etc. I just think if I can find a good artist, someone who can come up with sounds and music, I'll definitely be able to work on NOTHING but code! Woo!

Anyways, thank you again Richard for putting on such an awesome contest, I am excited for the next one, if anyone wants to join me on a team feel free to leave comments or find me on irc :D

Hey, I noticed Pyweek was featured on Joystiq. Neat!

thanks for all the constructive comments. some general comments on the main critique points:

The good

• gore - blood particles, die sounds and such. some liked it, some hated it - controversy is a good thing in my book. I spent quite some time getting the sounds right. A gun needs to sound like one *ratatata* and when I kill a bad guy I want to get feedback (particles+die sound)
• level pacing - I made the random level generator first, which explains why it works so good; added custom-made levels (+editor) on the last days (levels are just a serialized list and the editor is a hacked - COPIED - game engine). I wanted to make more levels and a real story, but didn't have enough time. This is more important, I realize now - presenting the game content in a considered way makes everything look more professional then just dumping everything at the user in a random fashion
• different enemies, pickups - where top priority. lot's of content makes the game more varied. I sort of succeded

The bad

• rope + collision physics - made those on the first few days, improved them only a little bit. The thing is: they work, if you have a strong machine (2ghz ++). The "bottom goes into screen" effect takes a lot of CPU - don't do dangerous rope-jumps during this phase and you should be fine (would be my excuse). I won't optimize... time will solve that problem for me.

The ugly

• menu - there isn't much to do in the menu, so I just made it one screen. Worked okay, some even mentioned it as nice :-) made it in inkscape and spent some time tweaking it
• graphics - some found them okay, some hated them. I never aimed for better graphics. I can't draw and already spent more then one day collecting fitting sprites. Found it more important to add more enemies/items then improve the existing ones.

Things I would feel like working on, not sure if I will:

• even more enemies. I'd love to have 20+ with different behaviour and boss enemies.
• better + more levels (20 or even more) with a story
• rope physics. the way the rope behaves is strange at least, but somehwat consistent. I don't know what to do about it, but I should investigate how worms and other games handle them.

I'm really rather content with how the game came out. I see that A LOT OF people had trouble with the collision physics, but that's a performance issue not "bad physics" per se (one could argue wether this is not the same thing). I should have slowed down the game if the machine is to weak.

Final note: take a look at my source code. It's UGLY AS HELL. this is alright for a one-week-shot project. I don't want to sound like a preacher, but do-the-simplest-thing-that-can-possible-work is a good thing. If something doesn't add to the gameplay-value (ie refactoring, nice structure).. forget it.

Firstly, a thanks goes out to Richard, the guys on IRC, and all the people who made, and tested the games. There are some great games out there, some of which I may keep tabs on and play again some time in the future.

Comments are annoymous, so I thought I'd reply to them here:


sometimes it behaves kind of buggy but this is one of those games you can spend hours playing and replaying
I plan to work a bit on the physics engine. I'm hoping I can get the thing to be slightly more stable, though when I tried that before performance dropped.

Good idea, but pyODE can be a SERIOUS pain to install.
Sorry about that. You've got it now though!

Solid dynamics, and the game is really intuitive to play. I found it almost impossible besides the easy level though. Some more polished graphics and interface and this could easily be a shareware title.
Thanks. It got easier for me when I learned to take it slow, and use every block to it's best. Also the wind judgements get easier with time. I included lots of difficulty levels to allow the player to slowly step up the difficulty. I'm currently somewhere in between medium and hard.

Fun game! Really nice use of the physics engine. Fits the theme quite well too. Production-wise quite nice, though could use a little bit of polish here and there and of course sound wouldn't be out of place. Something like high-scores would be nice. Also the game starts up in full-screen mode and then makes it impossible (?) to press the exit button. That only seems to work when I switch to windowed mode. With a little bit more work this could be a game to come back to a lot, where the player continues to try to improve their previous record (amount of blocks used, time used, etc on a particular difficulty level). What would be really nice if you could build the tower higher than a single screen as well. It really does need a high score screen in that case.
The game defaults to 800x600 full screen. This may cause problems on computers that don't have 800x600 supported as a full screen mode. I'll probably upload an updated version in the coming days that switches to windowed mode if the display can't handle 800x600 full screen. Sounds were in the pipeline, but I ran out of time, same with high scores.

Wow, really cool game! Please develop it further!
I plan on doing a bit of further development.

The building controls is very intuitive. I love it.
Took me a while to get those right – glad somebody noticed!

wow this is coooool ... should make the tower build up to infinity though the more it is the more points you get. Also wind changes and different blocks would be a ++!
Wind changes were in earlier versions, but didn't make the cut. Towers aren't stable at the best of times, and having to deal with wind changes would make it even tougher. Might add a difficulty option though. Infinite hight could perhaps be done in a sandbox mode. I didn't want to have to deal with scrolling screens, as they do bad things to frame rates if you have plenty of other stuff going on.

The block's suicidal tendencies are a bit frustrating.
I think this comment refers to blocks fading out. This is a bit tricky. Firstly, blocks which touch the wall, IMO, need to be destroyed - otherwise you could use the side walls as part of your tower. Secondly, playtesting showed that blocks being left at an angle were a real pain to build off, so blocks over a certain angle (10 degrees IIRC), for a certain time (about 4 seconds) are destroyed as well.

Addictive and very difficult, I could get my tower above the line, but it was never there for more than 5 or 10 seconds before the wind? blew it down.
Try building into the wind, and take your time. Also – you could try lowering the difficulty; I think I made the default a bit too hard.

Very cool!
Thanks!

Sound! we want sound of boxes falling and crashing! What a great game.
Sound and music are both in the pipeline if I develop this much futher.

This game is alot of fun, good job!
Thanks!

This was pretty challenging until I figured out how to build for the wind. I thought it could have used some sound and a better victory scenario.( maybe some hand comes out and knocks over your tower ) having some non-interacting or interacting objects like leaves blowing in the wind would have been nice to see how hard it is blowing. I liked it :D
The clouds are the basic indicator of wind strength at the moment, though something at different levels might be an idea. Not sure about the big hand...

At first, I didn't have PyODE installed, but wow! Excellent job detecting the lack of that, and so very nice to not have a crash message for once. Well done! Eventually, I got ODE compiled and installed, and then PyODE installed, and was able to play your game. Very fun! It's a fun concept of a game, a bit like Tetris, a bit like Jenga, and overall nice and enjoyable. I would like it if I were able to rotate blocks though. It could also be neat if you had to build up from piers in a river, such that if blocks fell into the water, they were lost. This could force the player to try and build towers and join them together with horizontals and make more ornate structures. I dunno' though, just an idea. The existing game that you made is quite a bit of fun to play with, though I do wonder what you could do with it with more polish. You've got some great potential here. Well done!
I don't like getting tracebacks either, and a simple try:... except:... clause is very easy to write! I considered allowing rotation of blocks, but (in my experience) there are some orientations you would never use if that was allowed. It seems to be horizontal blocks are almost always more effective than vertical ones, for example. As for more ornate structures – the physics engine would have to be tweaked to allow good looking spans.

This game is pretty fun. It's a simple, yet very effective idea.
Thanks!

This was one of the game ideas I was considering using. I'm glad I didn't, because this was a better implementation than mine would have been.
It's strange. This was my original idea, but I dismissed it as I didn't fancy writing all the collision detection and response, and thought it would be too slow anyway. Then I found PyODE, which solved all my problems. Great package.

Probably the most fun entry for me. It didn't have a lot of flashy graphics but the gameplay is absolutely flawless!
Thanks! The gameplay still has it's flaws – the blocks don't always interact very well, but I'm planning on trying to fix that.

Fun and innovative! :D
Thanks!

Very very cool. I'm impressed that you got so much stability out of ODE. A free form sanbox mode would be fun to play with.
There is a switch in the globals python file which removes time and block limits, as well as win criteria – the counters still count but nothing happens. Used it mainly for testing, but had I the time I would have implemented it in the options/difficulty menu.

Cool use of physics, but it was very hard to deal with the wind.
I think the default difficulty was a tiny bit too hard with the wind. Easy mode makes the wind a lot more manageable.

This game rocked! It was very simple, but I loved the physics and gameplay. It made me remember my days of block building as a kid.
That was actually my inspiration. Even when the towers fall down it's still quite satisfying!

The wind is evil I tell you. Pretty innovative concept.
Hehe.

Nice game. You should definitely develop it further. Add some more types of blocks and stuff. It would probably also be nice if the blocks could rest at an angle, although I guess that presents the problem with players just making a big heap of blocks without planning anything. You should try Wario Ware Smooth Moves on the Wii if you can, it has a similar minigame in it.
There are several problems with angled blocks; they are very hard to build on top of, they're hard to do collision detection for, and they allow a big pile of doom! I was told about that minigame near the end of the contest. Might have a look.

i hate the little blocks. they bother more than they help. its a bit to hard. placing hard, everything shakes.
I agree, they are a bit of a pain to fit in; but I think that's just part of the game.

interesting idea... gameplay needs to be improved.
In what ways?

This is one of my favorites, top 3 or something of the most fun games! What I miss the most is a better level system, and a bit mor polish overall.
I wanted to steer clear of a 'level system' as it would kick up testing and balancing time. There are several ways it could be implemented, but I can't think of any really satisfactory way – maybe a “challenge mode” with preset blocks.

Cool game. Mouse doesn't want to go to the options/pause/exit sidebar very much - just warps back into the game. Doesn't see much point to the resolution setting. Different shaped blocks would be cool. And different colours. And perhaps that idea where you get set different shapes and have to use them, rather than random shapes.
Not quite sure what's going on with the mouse. Sorry. Differently shaped blocks are a good idea – they'd probably have to have sides parallel and perpendicular to the game edges as the current blocks do, but it would allow you to lock the structure in place a bit more. It would have added to the work of the collision detection/respose which at the moment is quite simple in PyODE.

quite fun game (though not innovative) - made good. a little more production would help a lot
Another comment suggested that there was a similar Wii game, however I have not seen any other games like this before.

I like the game idea and the game itself is fun, too. If you'd like to extend the game, you could add different game modes, e.g. build a tower on a smaller area or tilting ground (ok, that sounds hard to program and hard to play).. Anyway: Well done.
Tilting ground sounds evil! Smaller area... hmmm.

Awesome game, just needed more levels/sounds/whatever.
Sounds, yes. Levels? It's not really level based – more difficulty mode based.

Physics. Yeah, physics!
Heh.

nice fun game..
Thanks

Would of been nice to have non-rectangular blocks, and sometimes I had a hard time inserting a block in between two other blocks.
Yes, this is a flaw. Sometimes it's because a block has blown/pushed slightly out of position, sometimes it's just a glitch. I tried quite hard to get the jittery motion out of the game, and I'm still trying.

It's a very solid physics puzzle game, but nothing really rises above average - the game looks OK, but not great, the concept is nicely elaborated with the wind and all, but not that interesting, and the gameplay is entertaining, but lacks greater variety. I like how you've incorporated the physics engine, and the game doesn't slow down at all even with lots of blocks on screen. The controls are very good too - the interface is so fluid and natural, that you almost don't notice it. So kudos for that, but I still don't think I'll return to play this game much in the future. And then, one small improvement that would be easy to make: Add a one-click reset button.
As any interface should be. At first I was a bit worried that people would feel that the block positioning seemed to jump about a bit too much (in earlier versions it did), but it seems to have gone well. Good idea with the one-click reset.

This is great! I love it.
Thanks!

Reminds me of bridge building games. Also that screenshot looks like a cannon.
It does a bit. I wanted to get a shot of something falling, which is quite hard to do in one image.

Nice game, good idea. It's pretty hard to balance the tower for the requested time. And that *** wind too... :D. Ownz!
Thanks.

Hurricane wind........This game rules :)
Hehe

You're missing some sound and background music there. Other than that, great entry. It's very fun and innovative. Also, challenging without being cheap. =)
You're right about sound.

Fun!
Glad you found it so.

Quite fun. However it quickly becomes very easy quickly. I do hope you keep working on this. Some recommendations: use difficulty levels. Have higher levels have birds smacking into the tower, more wind, deformed blocks, deformed ground. Ability to save screenshots would be really cool. I made a couple stable towers that looked really rickety :) 2player mode would be really fun if you could throw 1x1 or 1x2 blocks at your opponents tower, maybe once every time they get a block above the line.
Difficulty modes are already in there. Mentioned in the readme, and are off the options menu. I might bind Print screen to do a screen capture – didn't really think of it. My thoughts for a multiplayer mode would probably involve two completely separate games, but with the same blocks spawning, and a split-screen. Would kick up the pressure quite a bit!


Thanks again everybody for commenting and voting. I hope to take this a bit further, though I may not have time for a while (exams coming up soonish).

See you all in PyWeek5!

Thanks for all the comments you left when you rated the game, I'll try and learn from my mistakes, and do what you suggest next time. About the escape button, I'm not sure how to use that. Flickering, I think that I should have used two pygame.display.flip()'s instead of 100.It worked around a loop, so for one tenth of a second the quit button won't work. Soundd, I never had chance to implement it, fonts, I can make my own, but I don't know how to use fonts in the game. I only had 6 days to do the game, I was away for a day. Also I'm not nearly the best programmer, I'm still learning, at least it's easier than C++! Thanks for the ideas, I'll remember them.

to run game write

python hermes.py

tips

• try to jump through the screen edge - jump out of screen
• try to jump from higher cloud to lower (with maximum fall speed)
• don't hold up key too long - it slow downs fall speed

I guess the menu in my game irritated quite some people :) sry about that. Any way.. i uploaded a new version with following modifications:

• Menu key fix (esc to quit, enter to continue)
• Added requirement to rescue certain number of divers to complete a level.

I did not add the later feature before coz i thought people would try to make maximum score rather than just skip levels. Guess i thought wrong :D

... Actually, we re-named it back to the original name it had "Barbie Seahorse Adventures" ..

Check it out here.

It's got a bazillion bug fixes and about 10 new levels and all the lousy levels were removed. So have fun!