So we cooked some homemade lasagna... :D

We're going to do a music game. Since everyone in our team plays music, that seems like a fun thing to do. So you'll need a computer keyboard, a joypad, or a real instrument and microphone to play our game. We wanted the program to be useful too... to help train peoples ears, and maybe other musical skills.

Different 'lengths of string' play different notes on a guitar. So that's how it matches up with the theme.

------------------------------

In the dirty underground music scene often referred to as 'eye stabs', there are lethal gigs in select nightclubs around the world. Musicians play for eyes. A tune is played to the musician, and they must figure out the notes played.

Fuck up the tune, and you are stabbed in the eye! Get the tune right, fortune and respect are yours! Better than the riches and the adoration though -- rich club owners can give you spare eyes... and provide doctors that can give you back eyes you have had stabbed out.

So are you prepared to put your eyes on the line? Can you play well enough to avoid a stab in the eye? Do you trust the sleazy club owners doctors to fix your eye if it does get stabbed?

                       _____
                      q o o p
                      q o!o p
                      d o!o b
                       \!!!/
                       |===|
                       |!!!|
                       |!!!|
                       |!!!|
                       |!!!|
                       |!!!|
                      _|!!!|__
                    .+=|!!!|--.`.
                  .'   |!!!|   `.\
                 /     !===!     \\
                 |    /|!!!|\    ||
                  \   \!!!!!/   //
                   )   `==='   ((
                 .'    !!!!!    `..
                /      !!!!!      \\
               |       !!!!!       ||
               |       !!!!!       ||
               |       !!!!!       ||
                \     =======     //
                 `.    ooooo    .;'
                   `-._______.-'

Patrick and I spent the first couple hours sweltering and discussing ideas for "Length of a piece of string". We're both big fans of Atari, NES, and arcade games of the 80s, so we took our inspiration from Double Dragon and River City Ransom, and decided to make a Brawler where your weapon is a yo-yo. We loved animating the character in Subterraneman, so we decided to bring him back for this, and make it a bit of a sequel.

This time around, we have arcticclear as a new team member - she is just learning Python, and has animation experience.

Last night, Patrick worked on some initial yo yo attacks (seeking inspiration from youtube) and I learned pyglet well enough to make a scrolling level. Today we integrated our codebases, and I added enemy spawning, trigger zones, and masked off the boundaries of where you can walk on a map.

Screenshot up shortly...

edit: linked in screenshot

Well we had to re-think our idea for pyweek since "The Length of a piece of string" just didn't work. Hardly did much yesterday, so here have some concept art
yup...Rope...String...thread.... this is going to be a fun week

First of all it's absolutely great to finally be able to participate in pyweek. All previous contests I was either moving or on a trip.

Today I tried three different methods of artwork. Painting, Blender and vector art. I finally decided on the vector as it was the easiest and least time consuming method to create quality artwork. The only downside is that it fails to look extraordinary and unique; but I guess that's the price I have to pay to get this done in a week.



Ugg... gnome's screenshot functionality needs work :P

Even with not getting a good night's sleep yesterday I was able to accomplish everything I wanted to do today. I still don't know what kind of game I will be making, but at least I have a nice start on a 3D engine that can be put to use in creating something interesting.

I have been listening to music with Creative Commons licensing. There is a lot of great music. I will have to figure out what music to select and to ask if the artists would be ok with them being used in a video game competition -- which I doubt there will be too many problems with.

Andrew and I have fleshed out the basic ideas of our game (hint: RTS with string building material) and we have started coding.

We really wish there was a more real-time way to collaborate... We are often working on the same thing and want to watch each other. After PyWeek, we're planning to work on a networked Python IDE showing other's changes @ progress in real-time.

Well, it's been a busy day. Summing it up: 1) I got pyglet working with skellington (fixing resource paths) 2) I hacked a really simple particle physics engine, without collisions (not needed in this project) 3) I created a first test of a kite using particles and links and managed to render something (see screenshot!). 4) Wind can be created moving the mouse, and it pushes the kite around. However, the interface is still awkward. So, for tomorrow, I'll try to improve the interface.

Well, most of the team was MIA when the theme was announced. A few of us thought about it, mostly without progress. Eventually we went with a simple scrolling shooter with a twist - the player hanging from a rope which is being lowered through the level. As the player picks up powerups they get heavier making the rope spool out faster.

Of course at 3am while I was trying to sleep I realised that this was a dumb idea - the player is too close to the edge of the screen where bad things come from.

So at the start of day 2 (for me - the end of day 2 for Ehtirno and abzde) we decided to toss that out. We were having stability issues with pymunk on slower machines anyway.

Now we're working on an RPG with the core theme of The Fates:

Some nasty has stolen Fates' power and used it to attach your beloved, snipping of bits of life string. The bits have been handed to minions. You have to get the bits to save your beloved.

So Day 1 ends in about 30 minutes and I'm about to turn go to sleep after marathoning through this day. Here's what I think I've learned from day 1.

Pre-PyWeek

Pre-pyweek preparations are very important! Learning the technologies we use in pyweek before hand is great for code velocity. So code wise we did pretty well. Theme preparation wasn't too good for us though. We got caught off guard by Piece of String winning, I think we got too enamoured with our idea for Flatpacked that we didn't consider the other themes as much. Another place we could have done better (well, I could have done better) is in preparing the workflow. Was a bit rusty with 2d animations and I did not familiarize myself with my animation tools leading to much frustration on my side as I clumsily fought against the apps. Asset people should beef up on their pipeline too.

During PyWeek

Since this is a weeklong competition there is also a question of having the stamina to see it through the week. I'm lucky being in the middle of school semesters so I can dedicate the whole week to this. However, I do not think I can sustain what I have done on the first day throughout the whole week, which is basically stay up the whole day working on the game. Got to pace myself instead of flaming out.

I think this especially applies towards touching the codebase. Tired programmers will tend to introduce more problems to the code rather than moving it forward, so thats kinda... no.

Asset velocity is another concern. I'm creating the art too slowly, I probably need to drop some frames from animations or just be outright lazy and use filters/effects. I also should have thought of using flash to draw the keyframes instead of struggling with photoshop/painter which are not primarily meant for animation.

Share your thoughts on what you've learned so far in the competition!