Ok, so Zahme had to go to work and I had to visit university classes during Pyweek. Yet this entry feels like the most complete game we've ever submitted. It seems a little embarrasing... as if we'd been just lazy during the previous Pyweeks. XD

Of course, that's not quite right. Since we knew we'd be busy, we decided that our game should be simple, not too many graphics and easy to code. So we came up with the usual overly ambitious idea and a very simple idea per theme.

Our initial idea for "Get off my Lawn" was a rather boring "Hit-the-Mole" game. You need to defend your precious lawn against molesting moles. Destroy their molehills (with a hammer or something) - and if you don't destroy them in time a mole would look out of the molehill and laugh at you. Vicious creatures. ;)

When the theme was announced, we talked a little more about the mole-game and I mentioned the word "Shotgun" (you need some kind of powerup, right?). That reminded Zahme of another game.. and so Lawn of the Dead* was born.

The basics of the game were already done on Sunday. The character - a cat picture - was moveable, turned to the mouse pointer and shot deadly bullets at sloths. And the sloths moved towards the cat with zombie-like determination... Using placeholder art is actually quite fun. I made a version with 5 cat pictures that always rotated towards the mouse cursor - just because it looked funny... And it's nice when you finally see the real graphics in a playable game.

Meanwhile, Zahme pixeled some zombies and a lawn. He found a nice font for the logo and made some buttons. He actually wanted to create some more zombies (with missing limbs) but inventing 43 perks and making images for them takes quite some time - even if you have a whole week.

I may extract and document the game's "engine" and use it for Pyggy. If we can still pick older game entries (for Pyggy) we could finally finish VoCFI or Slider or C.A.T.:B.O.T... We don't have any good ideas on how to expand Lawn of the Dead but we'll release a less buggy after-pyweek version (with less typos). Soon. ^^

Well, thank you for a busy but fun week. I'll go and test the other games now.

*We had just watched Shaun of the Dead.

So, the game appears to be rather difficult at the start, but my brother finished it on both easy and hard, so I thought I would write up a little help guide, as well as a bit of a challenge.
It appears that once the game gets going, it gets rather easy (for a time), but then it starts getting hard again a lot later (I dunno, level 50+?)

So, first, how do you win?
Well, due to an interesting quirk (ie, we didn't balance them quite finely enough) the electro towers are probably the most powerful of the towers. I think the bird food towers are second, but they are about on par with upgraded missile towers, or just plain regular towers upgraded really high, I dunno, but I definitely recommend the BirdFood ones, because combined with the fast attack of the electro towers, the mega damage of the BF makes them a good one-two combo. Not to mention they are the most interesting towers :P

Now, my bro won the game with 5 or maybe 6 total towers in the end. But the thing you have to realize is that your warriors (except at the very beginning) are never going to be as strong as the insects, so don't even try and use them to actually fight (except for maybe the trappers, with their ranged attacks they can be quite useful sometimes...)

So starting out, build 3 towers around your hero, spaced about evenly so you can hit *almost* everywhere and there are not large holes (upgraded towers will fill them completely)
Now build 2 workers and upgrade your worker tech. You should have scraps close enough to your tower ring that your workers won't get slaughtered going for them, if not, put one of the starting towers out a bit further, it shouldn't really matter in the end-game.
Now, your towers will hold off the bugs for a few levels now, so just let them and your workers go. As soon as possible, upgrade your workers to level 3, this is the time when their speed maxes out, and is absolutely vital to having a steady supply of scraps later.
Now, once you get the money, upgrade your center tower to a missile tower, and the top and bottom ones to laser towers.
Then once again you have enough money, upgrade the laser towers to electro towers, and the missile tower either to a higher level missile tower, or to a bird food tower.
Now build a few more workers (probably until you have 5 or 6 at least) and just keep upgrading your workers for a while (probably level 5 or 6 is plenty), this increases the amount of scraps they can carry, and will be needed later. You may also want to upgrade your traps a couple times if you want to help your towers and warriors out later.

Once the enemies start getting too hard again, upgrade all your towers once more, and that should be fine for now.

Now, lay a few spike traps and bomb traps as close to the enemy base on the south side, and then build a new tower behind the defense line.
If you do it right, your workers should have enough speed, and your traps strong enough, that the tower will be built. If not, build an intermediate tower, between your ring and the new site under the enemy hive first, upgrading to electro.
Once your tower is built under the hive, upgrade it quickly to an electro tower, and then just keep upgrading it as much as you want, it's sole goal is to try and wipe out the bugs before they even get a few tiles from the hive.
If your electro tower is just getting too expensive to upgrade and you need more firepower to hold down the baddies, build a new tower (upgrading to Bird food) to the right of the enemy hive.
By this point nothing except the occasional worm should be getting by those two towers, if they are, keep upgrading them! (my bro ended up with an electro tower doing in excess of 1000 damage a shot up there O.o)

Now you have the win, so just upgrade your warriors a couple time, and then send only trappers. Trappers are best because they are the fastest, as well as they will throw nets on enemies, thus keeping them away longer, and perhaps helping your towers up there even more.

Just for kicks you can win once the hive's health is at about 7 or 8, by just sending the broom and the lawn-mower specials to finish them off.
The gas special is the best for you, as it only hurts the bugs, but it doesn't hurt the hive.
The broom hurts the hive and the bugs, but also takes out your bots.
The lawnmower takes out everything (though it does give you scraps as well as gold to rebuild) - so unless you are really in trouble I wouldn't recommend it ;)


There you go, that should be a winning strategy for everyone - though I am sure others have thought of better :P

Now, for the challenge. Due to the nature of the game (starting hard, easy for a long time after, and then getting really hard probably level 50+) it seems like one of the biggest challenges (besides just winning :P ) is how fast you can win, or how long you can go before winning.
So, everyone post your fewest kill wins (ie, try killing as few insects as possible, thus equaling winning faster ;) ),
and also your most kills victory. It can be quite fun to rack up a lot of kills, but can you still win once you get to that point?

Cheers all :) (and I'll post my fewest/most here later :P)

Windows users, if you're running our distributable and getting an error like

The application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

it is because I built the project against Python2.6 and it's looking for the Visual Studio 2008 runtime. If you would be so kind as to install the Visual Studio 2008 C runtime[1] (it's only 1.7M!), then our game should work.

Thanks, Colin

[1] 32 bit: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9b2da534-3e03-4391-8a4d-074b9f2bc1bf&displaylang=en
64 bit: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=bd2a6171-e2d6-4230-b809-9a8d7548c1b6&displaylang=en

There is a bug in the release version of the game - if you leave the first screen without picking up the case, the case will vanish for the rest of the game; and you need it at the end. When the game starts, be sure to right click on it to pick it up - it will be at Moe's feet. Also, don't forget, left mouse to examine, right mouse to use stuff.

Here is a walkthrough of the game, universal hint system style:

This dog is in my way.

Give him something to chase so he is not in your way.

The item you give him can move on it's own.

It's a living creature.

But when you first get it, it is too tired to run.

Give it something to make it more energetic (highlight next hint for full solution)

Get squirrel from the hole in the tree, use the soda on the squirrel, use the hyper squirrel on the dog.

How do I get the squirrel?

You need to lure him out.

What do squirrels like to eat?

The item you need should be obvious when you find it, but it can't just be picked up somewhere.

You have to get into the car first.

The hobo has what you need.

Trade what you get in the car to the hobo, and then use that to get the squirrel.

How do I get into the car?

You'll have to break in.

But you don't want to be destructive.

How would you break in if it was your own car?

The tool you need is actually a part of another item.

Use the suit on the car door.

How do I get into the shed?

You will have what you need later in the game.

It will be obvious when you can.

I guess you just want to cheat through the whole game?

Cheater.

Mow the lawn with the lawnmower to find the key. Use the key on the shed door to unlock it.

How do I get the lawnmower to work

It needs gas.

The car has gas.

Maybe it can be siphoned?

Need a container to hold the gas, and something to syphon it with.

Too actually siphon the gas, you need to use the two items together.

So combine them before using the combined item on the gas tank of the car.

Use the gas on the lawnmower, then use the mower to mow the lawn.

What is a good container for the gas puzzle?

The soda doesn't work as a container.

There is only one other item that really makes sense, and it is an easy item to find.

It's the lawn gnome watering can.

I still can't get gas.

Pick up the lawn gnome

Pick up the hose

Use the hose on the lawn gnome

Use the gnome/hose on the gas tank.

What's with the hobo?

He trades random things for random things.

When stuck, trying to trade any leftover items to the hobo may work.

Highlight next hint for the list of items you trade.

Trade the smelly sock and the ladder.

How do I ring the doorbell without bad things happening?

You need to get in the shed first.

If you've been in the shed and cleaned it out, you should be able to fix the problem.

It's a problem with the floor, not a problem with the doorbell.

Use the boards, nails, and then hammer on the trapdoor to cover it up.

I don't have any peppermint!

You don't need peppermint, that's just Henry's lame mannerism.

Just try to sell him the breifcase (use breifcase on henry.

If you don't have a breifcase, you didn't read the topic of this post and you have to start the game over again.

What's Henry's problem with me?

He will only buy from a proper businessman.

He tells you the two things that you need to be in order to be considered proper.

Greasy hair, and a suit.

The suit should be obvious - you already have it.

The grease is a bit of a stretch

You will find the grease you need if you have traded with the hobo twice.

Use what he gives you on your hair to handle the grease.

Still don't get it?

Trade ladder to hobo to get pizza, use pizza on moe to grease his hair.

Sell breifcase to henry and win the game.

With the magic of wget, here's the unofficial pyweek 8 torrent. It's going to be slow for now since I've only got 50kbps upstream but at least its going and gord and some others will soon be coming along to help seed.

I built a win32 version. It includes source. It also works in Wine, if you don't feel like installing the prereqs and are in linux. You can grab it here.

Some known issues in Lawn Fairy:

1) If you go back to the main menu and start a new game... there will be only one ant. No more bugs will appear! You have to quit ant re-start the game. Sorry!

2) It seems that it frame rate drops too much suddenly (due to a program running in background, for example), strange things may happen. But it works properly if your computer manages to keep a constant frame rate.

3) That strange flicker is still there in some computers. No idea how to fix that.

4) When exiting, I get an error from media.Player objects. Something about something not being deleted properly. I'm asking this one in pyglet.org.

And probable, many more surprises are on the way! :)

Well, I did not have Internet at home yesterday, so I had to upload a multiplatform version and a windows (exe) version today, which include some minor bug fixes (and this is not a pun!)

I know it's two days after the deadline, so feel free to judge the first version. It's almost identical, but it does not work on Linux or Mac and difficulty is not adjusted. Everything else is exactly the same, but it now works on any platform and difficulty increases with time. Please, at least play the multiplatform version once! We really would like people to try our game and receive some feedback.

I -must-, once again, thank Kokoro for his sprites, sound effects... and that incredible soundtrack. I just love how it sounds!

Well, now it's time to play everything else! Good luck!

Today, we balanced the last waves of creeps.

Additionaly, we will present your weapons. Each of them has 3 upgrade levels:

	The Fly flap is good to attack a group of insects with its splash damage. It cannot attack air units.
	The HoneyPot Tower has less damage than all the other towers. It slows down the creeps for a while. In the lesser levels enemies gets a health point bonus when they are attacked by the HoneyPot.
	The Toad Tower is very effective against small insects. It can only attack one enemy at a time.
	The Insecticide Tower is effective against groups of enemies. It causes a poison damage over time, if an enemy was hit.

I found a bug in my game where when you die or win, it will eventually take you to the start screen but won't ever let you play the game again, you have to restart. I would fix it but the solution would add too much functionality since I kind of forgot to include this system in the first place. Oh well, next time!

I would GREATLY appreciate any feed back from people using joysticks. Of course, all other feedback is welcome. I hate using a keyboard for platformers but joystick APIs are generally not that friendly. The latest version (04) fixed a bug where switching to a uncalibrated joystick would crash.

Also, I wanted to make it clear that you can eventually destroy the spider spawning mounds, that is how you eventually win.