I was planning on developing the game in opengl and was wondering if it is ok to assume that all the systems that the participants have will support pixel and vertex shaders.

These shaders are going to be important from the game play perspective as well so any suggestions about whether or not I should go with the shaders or just stick with basic pygame surface blts etc.

If the shaders cannot be assumed, i guess ill' stick with pygame's surface blts and make a 2D game.   

I've done some thinking.

My first thought is thus: While only one other entry is likely to be a first-person shooter (RB[0]'s team), I still want to be unique.

I think I can readily accomplish this by making a tank game instead of a standard FPS.

I can fit it into "Flagging" fairly readily, my original idea works just fine.

"Reception"... Radar jamming as a central mechanic somehow? Re-establish communications to allow an air-strike to commence? Something along those lines.

"Feather" would require me to re-think this. I'd probably make the first-person Joust idea.

"Scissors": Scissor tank, yo! Not sure how to make it a game, though...

"What Big Eyes You Have" is a tricky one. A stealth tank game, perhaps? Not sure how that'd work...


I'd probably use the mouse to control the turret. WASD or arrow keys would steer the tank. (IE: A/Left and D/Right would turn, W/Up and S/Down would make it go forward or backward, respectively)

I'd probably do collisions based on bounding boxes, which would mean that my tanks would be a bit on the super-deformed side. I like that anyway, though.

Bounding rectangle along the ground, that is. Unless I decide to have multi-level maps. Even then I'd probably fake it.

Well, that said, the meshes would probably be fairly simple, but they'd have fairly nice textures to make up for it. (Nothing award-winning, but pretty good, I think)

I like this idea. It's (somewhat) unique. The only other (Extant) first-person tank game I can think of is BZFlag, and that doesn't have tanks with turrets.

I think it'd probably be pretty fun if I did it right. I mean, what's better than blowing crap up with a tank?

I'm curious what others think about this. Could a tank game do well in PyWeek?

I like this idea. :-)

---Akake

I've spent most of the day today trying to figure out how to create the art work required for the game ill' be making.. i've decided that ill' be making a 2D game with 3D renders.. so I have been looking at blender's options tinkering around with it.. to get the right data. I've still got this question about using opengl or pygame ... but most probably ill' stick with just pygame library. But this might change.. just in case.. i learn the glsl shaders usage in pyglet or pyopengl.

I have an idea that was mostly brought to mind by recently deciding to get back into playing Nexuiz.

Well, and RB[0] bringing it up.

I may (As the title of the entry suggests) make a shooter of some sort.

I'm definitely thinking of using PYGGEL, because it was designed for this sort of thing.

Besides that, it depends on the theme.

Well, that and what others are doing. Wouldn't want to make a duplicate game, now would I?

----

That said, I have some concepts in mind.

Feather:
First-person Joust, yo!

Flagging:
There are several colors of flags. You can only hurt enemies of the same color as the flag you are carrying.

Reception:
It resembles dodgeball. You are a player in the futuristic sport of Smackball.
You have a gun that can catch the ball and fire it at other players. Your gun only has a certain amount of power, which is consumed both by catching and firing the ball. It recharges over time.
To catch the ball, you must be facing it and using your gun's catch function.

Scissors:
You are a soldier who has been dispatched to the (Evil Guys) flying fortress, (Evil Place)!
You have been equipped with the (Good Guys) newest weapon, the "Slice Gun"!
You must use it to defeat the (Evil Guys) and destroy (Evil Place)'s structurale supports, which are conveniently pieces of steel cable which tie the whole thing together! Hoo-ah!

What Big Eyes You Have:
You are NINJA's most skilled soldier!
Use your stealth and cunning to destroy the evil (Allegedly) forces of PIRATE!
But be careful! PIRATE has been training LOOKOUT soldiers who can see through walls!
The LOOKOUTs are your most dangerous opponents, and nearly every PIRATE encampment has at least a few.
Beware as well of rival agents from the nefarious ROBOT and VIKING groups.
ROBOT units can see through walls, as well, and can even fire through them!
VIKING units are slow, but make lots of noise when they run, alerting everyone around them!

After your first operation, PIRATE will be after you, first and foremost. That said, you should probably let ROBOT and VIKING soften up PIRATE. Just be careful! You don't want them to get you first!

Your objective is to defeat the CAPTAIN of each PIRATE base, and destroy the reactor core, sinking the base under the waves!

----

Those are just rough ideas, though.

I like the NINJA one, m'self. Dripping with internet culture.

Looking forward to this one. :-)


---Akake

Vote! Vote! VOTE!!!!

we are trhee now (maybe)

painful to choose, hard to imagine a game based on each theme - can i really code a game for Pyweek9 in a week? :|

Never in the previous pyweeks did i have so much trouble selecting the order of voting.. had to think for quite a while before i could come up with the right votes.. :)

ps: just in case you were wondering.. this is just a diary entry to see if everything in my logins is working fine :D

I've thought about this alot over the course of today.

I may or may not decide to use OpenGL. It depends on which theme is chosen, and where I choose to take it.

I realized not but a few hours ago that I'd probably spend most of the week dickering with OpenGL, and have next to nothing by week's end. Better off leaving it for another day.

I want to focus on interpreting the theme in a different way. I can't promise unique-ness, as there are lots of folks who will be doing the same thing, but I'll try something different.

I will try to keep to my strengths. I will try my hardest to make an action game, an arcade game if possible.

That said, I'll actually be keeping tabs on the difficulty of my game this time around. There will also be more of a strategic and/or explorative aspect to it, provided I can fit it into the game's concept.

I'm not sure about the genre. I like platformers, but I also like the idea of a first-person arcade game. Then there's the thought of a fighting game. Or... Maybe a shmup...

I don't have any solid ideas yet, but they'll come, I'm sure.

That said, I'm happy to be taking a break.

I've decided against making another game before the compo.

Instead, I'm going to relax for the next few days, think about the themes, and practice with Pygame's OpenGL bindings.

I'm going to be working with OGRE3D in C++ after the compo is over, but not until then.

I'm thinking of going the perilous route of the 3D game this time around. It's kinda risky, but I think I can make it work.

I'm prolly going to use Blender3d and an OBJ WaveFront parser, alongside Pygame/OpenGL.

This will be fun. It'll be my first 3D game. :-)

Yatta!

---Akake