The “飞来横祸” Award


Presented by xmzhang1 to:

Journey of the Monarch (Let's Go)
Father and son team. Looking forward to another great week of hacking on a game.


And here's our result ...


Overview

You are a Monarch butterfly migrating to Mexico. This is the final leg of your 3000 mile journey from Canada and it will be the most perilous. You are weak and getting tangled in a bush is a real possibility. If that wasn't enough, you'll also have to contend with predatory birds swooping in for a butterfly flavored snack.

Thankfully there are Milkweed flowers here and there on your route. You can glide onto them to replenish some of your energy which decreases with every flap of your wings. The faster you fly, the more energy you use.

Installation

It's suggested that you run the game within its own virtualenv to avoid any dependency conflicts.

  1. Unzip the source archive
  2. Open the directory that was extracted from the archive
  3. Run pip install pgzero==1.2
  4. Run python butterfly.py

Controls

  • Up Arrow: speed up
  • Down Arrow: slow down
  • Left/Right Arrows: go left and right
  • Spacebar (hold): glide (uses glide power, conserves energy)

Quick Tips

  • Glide onto flowers for energy
  • Avoid or glide over bushes
  • Speed up or slow down to dodge birds

Strategy

Glide power is used up faster than it is gained. Choose when to glide wisely. You'll need to glide to land on flowers to replenish energy. You can also glide over bushes if you can't dodge them. Once you've depleted your glide power, it has to build up to a certain point before you can glide again.

Going faster isn't necessarily better. It's harder to dodge bushes and plot your course to the next milkweed. On the other hand it can be useful for avoiding birds. Speaking of that, sometimes you might need to leave a flower before you've gathered all of its nectar.

Take deep breaths and relax. Try and balance energy, glide power, staying alive and completing your journey.

Credits

Built with Python, PyGame Zero, Mu and PyCharm. All graphics created in MS Paint 3D by Christian and Eli Wyglendowski.

Animated butterfly (graphics and code) by Eli Wyglendowski. Bushes and bird graphics also by Eli.

Original musical score by Christian Wyglendowski.

Uses the PixelLetters font by GeelynEdits.