damn themes for voting...

nitrofurano on 2009/08/24 23:28 of Nitrofurano_PyWeek9

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

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Comments

alia on 2009/08/25 00:44:

Ah that makes it even more fun! I have NO ideas... but im sure when the time comes... a bit of brain storming etc :)

gcewing on 2009/08/25 01:25:

So far I've got a couple of reasonable ideas each for Reception and Flagging. Feather could be just about anything to do with birds, so I could probably handle that if need be. But Scissors... and What Big Eyes... no idea what to do with those, yet...

Tee on 2009/08/25 02:11:

I have no ideas either, but they sound like fun. :) And it was a hard choice, I had to choose them almost randomly. I'm particularly curious of what games would come up if "What big eyes you have" won...

nitrofurano on 2009/08/25 09:11:

indoubty funny! :) - i confess i had some ideas, but no one mature enough for develop in one week, or too hard or complex to be developed in one week! and i changed the vote order about 3 times (Richard seems to switched off my vote since it's not empty anymore, interesting if we could keep changing it until the end of the theme voting? but, never mind, i'm not worrying about it at all....)
@gcewing i also imagined reception, flagging and birds could have more votes indeed... i'm very curious about what will appear in this competition! :)

richard on 2009/08/25 10:39:

@nitrofurano yeah you can keep changing your vote as much as you like until the deadline. Vote early, vote often! :)

Not sure what you mean by "switched off my vote" though.

gizmo_thunder on 2009/08/25 11:31:

I am really hoping that Scissors thing comes up.. it could be hard for me to make the game if its' something else :P.. esp the What big eyes you have...

nitrofurano on 2009/08/25 13:10:

@richard - switch off i meant i can't change my vote anymore - otherwise you're saying i can keep changing it until saturday? is some bug in the pyweek.org causing this? or i'm looking for that in the wrong urls?

RB[0] on 2009/08/25 14:55:

I find it *much* easier to come up with an idea for each them if you first pick a type of game you want to do, and go from there.
Like me - I chose to do a FPS, because I want to test out PYGGEL's new features and see what she can do - so I have at least a basic idea for what I will do for each theme - the more unique ideas I've thought out a little more, the others not so much - but I know at least I can get an idea pretty quick for each :)

HTH

Cosmologicon on 2009/08/25 15:51:

I don't have much success finding ideas before voting is finalized. Once I know what the actual theme is, I have something I like after a few hours.

I try to imagine the single most straightforward idea for a theme and avoid it, simply because I think it will be used a lot. Not because using it makes an game unoriginal, but since we're in a competition with lots of games, it makes it harder to stand out. So, for "get off my lawn", I avoided an old man attacking kids.

Not all themes lend themselves to obvious ideas, though. I guess I'll avoid anything football-related for reception, capture-the-flag for flagging, a scissors-based fighting game, and anything with a big bad wolf for the last one. Beats me what people will do for feather.

richard on 2009/08/25 23:55:

Sorry nitro I'm not following you. When you go to the challenge page and click on the link to the poll what happens? Are you able to edit your vote? If so then it's working as designed.

Tiger on 2009/08/26 11:39:

I concur. There will either be pentiful discussion which games do fit the theme, or no discussion at all because everyone is confused enough about their own solution!

richard on 2009/08/26 12:09:

As usual I'm pretty much not thinking about the theme until it's actually decided; my votes are spur-of-the-moment, done-in-a-minute gut feel semi-random. Having said that I think I have an idea forming which could suit Feathers, Big Eyes or Scissors. Not sure what I'll do if Reception or Flagging get up...

Akake on 2009/08/26 15:49:

I think about it quite a bit before the theme is announced, but I do best throwing my pre-announcement ideas out once the compo has begun.

Well, comparing the only two previous entries I've had. X-D

---Akake

nitrofurano on 2009/08/26 17:22:

@richard, yes i must go at the challenge page, i forgot that... - thanks! :)

nitrofurano on 2009/08/30 23:41:

uploaded my final entry, maybe was it too soon? i'm really newbie on this, counting to spent all week on a game, and after a day i got it in a stage i humbly think considering ready... of course i'm not expecting votes better than 1/5...

richard on 2009/08/31 01:09:

You can upload a final entry as early and as often as you like. Have you read the "help" page?

nitrofurano on 2009/08/31 01:51:

@richard - thanks! - the content of 'help' looks more like 'faq' - 'help' we think that is for another thing...

nitrofurano on 2009/08/31 01:57:

@richard - the bird i used on my game were a hand trace on inkscape from a low resolution animation sheet from Eadweard Muybridge, which is public domain (19th century - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge ) - can all be considered GPL, or the part of the spritesheet must be kept as public domain, even it's a contour vectorial handraw from a low resolution picture? (which i think can be considered as an interpretation)

richard on 2009/08/31 02:52:

Muybridge is a legend :)

nitrofurano on 2009/08/31 10:59:

and we can still learn a lot from him! :)

Cosmologicon on 2009/09/01 03:09:

Hey nitrofurano, do you want feedback on your game? If so, could you post a feedback thread for your entry? By that I mean, make a diary entry where people can talk about it.

Cosmologicon on 2009/09/01 03:25:

Nevermind, I can just give you feedback here. This is your thread, after all.

The look is very stylish, and the game runs smoothly and the controls work well. It doesn't feel like a game, though. At any give time, every part of the screen has the same amount of feathers, and every part of the screen has the same amount of sardines. By the time it matters, the fish are too fast and too numerous to avoid. No matter what I do, fly around or just sit there, I always die between 70 and 80 seconds. What separates a game from a simulation is that the player's actions need to matter, you know?

Maybe you should have fewer feathers and sardines, and have each one matter more. Like have one-tenth as many of each, and each one does 10% instead 1%. Just one idea. Are you able to survive more than 80 seconds?

nitrofurano on 2009/09/01 11:08:

@Cosmologicon - i didn't start a feedback thread for my entry because i tried doing it! thanks! :)
your feedkback points are important - thanks! - and told one thing i had some difficulty about - it's weird there is no difference between you try to play it a lot and not playing at all, everything between 70 and 80 seconds... - i'll try to see if some bias in the random values would help, since i don't want to change too much the game, since i'd like to keep that 'chaotic' feeling on that... - but indeed i really want to set a difference between being skilled to play that or not, of course...
Years ago i also tried to code some shooters, and always having difficulties on the enemy attack waves part - i really don't know how to do it - my very first concern were publishing 'something' to the pyweek-9, since it's my very first pyweek participation.
Thanks for the clues, which are providing me some more ideas, and i hope fixing it until deadline! Thanks!

nitrofurano on 2009/09/01 11:43:

oops again, i wanted to say "because i didn't try to do that yet" instead "because i tried doing it" (this message board needs an edit after posting, for saving dyslexic people posting message erratas all the time! ;) )