And so much to do... at least i am done with critical features... now i can focus on sound and smarter AI and more levels.

Looks like everything is coming together I guess, pretty much lost any sense of objectivity. Can't tell what is hard, what is easy. Need a nap, but no time for that sort of carry on. Am pretty happy with everything. Friend came over and gave me the music he put together. I have added some sounds also. They are a good fit. Pretty happy with how my capital ship looks. Finally got the 'rail slide' grind effect in. Yay. All systems go.

I'm busy designing and testing the game levels and making small tweaks to the source code. Here's a screenshot of my desktop while I'm working. A portion of level one is visible in the game window on the upper left side of the desktop. On the right side I have the source code and game level files open for editing.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/68047466@N00/3493675719/" title="Cat vs Mice 3 by mespringfield, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3648/3493675719_d19e9913e5.jpg" width="500" height="313" alt="Cat vs Mice 3"></a>

I'm surprised by how my game turned out.

For instance: In Rose Ninja, if you touch an enemy's shuriken that's stuck in the terrain, you take damage. Enemies do the same if they touch one of yours that is stuck in the terrain.
I originally thought that that would be an "Oh, that's kinda cool" sort of thing, but it has turned into something that has to be thought about in combat.

Also, spikes. When I came up with the idea, I just thought they'd be something that I'd throw in for the sake of it. Those spikes, when properly placed, become really important. In the level I'm working on now, level three, there is a spike pit. If you fall into it, you're pretty much dead. (Spikes don't kill you instantly, but do about four damage. They do knock you around, thought, even into eachother) However, if you can get the enemies to fall into it, the level become much easier.
In fact, the focus of level three is tricking the hordes of enemies to impale themselves on spikes. I like level three alot, by the by, but it is nice to have it come out better than level two, which... Well, it isn't bad but it isn't as good as I could have done.

I was also taken off guard by how the enemy AI turned out. I half-expected to have to re-write completely, because it was something I threw in when I was first writing the class, but it turned out to be very effective after surprisingly little tweaking.

Almost as surprising was the level loader system. I really expected my original loader to work. However, it really didn't. My plaintext system, though, is surprisingly effective.

This has been really interesting for me. I should have at least five levels by the end of the compo.

And, after I've submitted an entry that I'm happy with calling my final one, I'm going to start working on the Pyggy Awards version, which I'll elaborate on later today.

Needless to say, though, I've got big plans for Pyggy. Big plans that I'll do a bit at a time. ;-)

Anyhoo, I've been surprised at many parts of the design process here. I'm really anticipating everyone's entries, as well. ^o^

---Akake

http://media.pyweek.org/dl/8/8ball/BubbMan2-v1.1.zip

I've uploaded a final entry, though it still doesn't have the intro. Hopefully I'll get it in some time today, but the rest of the game is very much complete. Five levels of insanity, skill, speed, and a final boss level.

EDIT: Added the intro, I'm done!!

Good luck to everyone, there's some awesome entries I'm eagerly waiting to play :)

Programming for my game is now complete and I have two game levels almost finished! Now I'm working on adding few more levels and doing some tweaking. The game play needs balancing - the first level is probably too easy, and the second level is a little too hard. Not sure how much balancing I can get done before the deadline.

Here's a new screenshot from level 2. Those little gray dots are mice closing in on the garden shed.

Well Alex has gone to sleep. So I get to write up the "yay-we-have-finished" diary entry, right now only the Python source code is up. Windows and Mac OS X binaries will soon be available.

This PyWeek has been an odd one, originally going to just spend the Sunday working on our game, it soon spilled into the week. I finished up my half of the game mid week and have spent the past few days, testing for bugs and doing what little extra art I could so I wouldn't have to work on my assignments =P (This explains the above image)

Today we (as in Alex) did the music and final touch ups to the game. AVBin will be needed to hear sound.

Right now I can't think of anything else to say, Alex or I will probably write up another post to explain a few more things in a later date.
Enjoy the game and remember: Freedom is only a few clicks away =P

Like I wrote in previous posts, I won't be able to put gameplay in my game. There's still too much to do; I'm quite sure I can't put gameplay in today. So I've decided to give up on this game. Sorry, I have to know when to acknowledge defeat. :(

I'm taking the same route I took last Pyweek and will write a simple game in the next few hours, mostly because I want to be able to judge the games.

I feel like I failed, because there's so much I did (especially on the art side) and I'm not using any of that. Maybe for the Pyggy awards (I hope it's ok to work on a game that I haven't submitted...). So, this is it, now I guess I'll just finish this other game. But this Pyweek is like a DNF for me.

I think I will make a few comments about the haunted mansion game after Pyweek - the plans turned out quite nice, I just failed the execution. Is anyone interested? I won't post the game here because it's a real mess, but if you're interested to see the "game" itself, let me know on IRC after the end of Pyweek; I'd be happy to show you.

Playability achieved. Three levels so far. Maybe I'll get another couple done tomorrow before the deadline.

I knew there is going to be some hard part in this game... That would be the AI, making a smart fighter in this game is very hard. Managed to make a bit intelligent one so far. I still need to do high score table and its functionality... (At the least)... And the there is sound and stuff...