CompoGameLoader

keeyai on 2008/07/16 22:41 of MUA

I didn't know where to post this, so I made it a diary page. Also posted at LudumDare. Over the last few days I've been working on a program to manage the playing and judging of games during the competition. I've reached the beta stage and need your help. Here is the full link - http://keeyai.com/2008/07/16/compo-game-loader/ - please give it a read.

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Comments

ServalKatze on 2008/07/20 10:43:

Hey, that's a great program. :) I've just tried it with a little testgame and it works nicely. I may put a few sample games together as soon as I can.. I still need to learn a bit for an exam on Tuesday.

ServalKatze on 2008/07/23 14:42:

C.A.T.:B.O.T.
Slider1000
The Villainy of Cat Food Inc.

I've "packaged" a few of our old games. Note that these may be rather buggy.. ;)

I still need to reinstall Python.. I've added windows executables and used them as entrypoint (for Windows). For some reason only zK-2 is playable- the other games complain about not finding files. They work fine when I start them with the file browser. No idea why. Isn't it great to have competent testers? ^^

keeyai on 2008/08/20 18:19:

Hey thanks for giving it a test! We used it pretty heavily in the most recent ludumdare (Aug 8), so it has probably come a long way since you used it in late July. It still isn't perfect -- it seems to have some issues on mac and it absolutely fails when a game is a true console app. For the most part, however, it went very well.

If people here package their games up with CGL in mind, it makes the judging process a pleasure instead of a chore. (CGL still works if they don't do anything for it, but there are a lot of features authors can take advantage of with a little extra work, particularly in python).

I just downloaded and tested the catbot you linked above and it runs just fine. However, the gameinfo.xml format has changed slightly since you made it (sorry!) so that is deprecated. The new way provides much more control over platform-specific files.

richard on 2008/08/21 01:51:

Now would be a good time to mention any changes that could be made to the PyWeek Skellington :)

pymike on 2008/08/21 13:23:

Hey Richard... Thought you'd like to know, but Richie Ward (The guy that's making PyGameDB) said that the way PyWeek games are launched (with Skellington) won't work with PyGameDB. IIRC PyGameDB executes programs by calling it's main() function. So you'd probably need the run_game.py file to go something like:

import sys

def main():
    sys.path.append("lib")
    import main
    main.main()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

I've always had problems running PyWeek games on windows. If it finds an error, to view the traceback I have to add this under all the try statements:

sys.path.append("lib")
import main
main.main()

[actually I'm not sure if I had to add lines 2-3 lines]
Otherwise it just says "no module named main"

I'll check back with Richie to confirm the pygamedb stuff :-)

Cheers!

RB[0] on 2008/08/21 17:53:

Pymike, I have had that problem on windows forever, but I also tested and found the issue only in IDLE. I think the skellington should be fixed to address this, as people on windows don't generally use the cmd line to execute programs, so the must use IDLE to get a traceback for a problem...

richard on 2008/08/21 22:31:

@pymike I've posted a number of times asking for information regarding Skellington and PygameDB and got nothing. Thanks for the hints and I await some patches :)

Or maybe I should go with a less-perfect Skellington and just move lib/ into the top-level directory? Would solve a lot of problems, I think....

RB[0] on 2008/08/22 02:46:

personally, I don't even use the skellington, just have run_game.py and all my logic in /lib (or other/more) and my data in /data, like the skellington.

I set up my code so it runs under windows, linux and whatnot by default, and then I don't like anything else the skellingotn provides really - and so far I haven't had a single DNW from doing so.

Just MO, but I find it gets in the way and I end up not using it anyways, so I just use the layout so as not to get in trouble and that is it ;)

richard on 2008/08/22 07:27:

@RB[0] I'm having trouble figuring out what else the Skellington does that you're not doing :)

... apart from making sure there's a README, that is ... you didn't mention that :)

RB[0] on 2008/08/23 02:47:

Oh, readme of course LOL, but the data functions and the run_game.py file itself - name my file that, but it is different - more friendly for IDLE ;)

pymike on 2008/08/23 16:39:

Just chiming in... Probably 99% of windows users use IDLE [everyone I know does anyway], so you'll want it to be IDLE-friendly.

Treeform on 2008/08/27 21:59:

i never actually seen any python programer use IDLE

eugman on 2008/08/27 23:56:

I used to like it a lot but the issue with not reloading modules made me switch.

RB[0] on 2008/08/28 03:19:

I use IDLE - on ubuntu now, but also in windows. First thing I used when I started, and I've gotten used to it's quirks and really like it's simplicity now ;)

pymike on 2008/08/28 13:03:

I'm on ubuntu now too, and I actually just use gedit and the cmd line :-P On ubuntu IDLE's fonts look funny, but it was awesome on windows, and I wouldn't use anything else on it.

keeyai on 2008/09/07 00:11:

I don't use IDLE and, like treeform, don't know anyone who does. Besides you, apparently, pymike and RB.

I have never had problems running anyone's entries on windows, outside of crazy dependencies. However, I am totally willing to spend some time chasing dependencies down. Still, it doesn't take me fiddling with any structure to make them work - I don't know what you guys are doing wrong.

Sorry I didn't get back to you about CGL in time for including it in the skellington/whatever. I don't keep track of my old posts here and only noticed this today. Perhaps next time.