I've only been able to access the net sporadically over the past few days, so I've not been able to post any updates on what I've been doing. Here is some information about my pyweek entry.

Game premise:

Build and maintain a reliable steam distribution network on an alien world. Steam comes from geothermal vents: you must route it safely to an ever-growing city, through a network of pipes and substations. Unfortunately, you're under constant attack from marauding aliens, sandstorms, and quakes.

Game overview:

It is a single-player real-time strategy game with a 2D view. Requires Python 2.4 and Pygame 1.7.x. Game tested on geriatric laptop without Psyco, so system requirements will not be high.

Still to do:

• Storm season.
• Textures
• Sound effects
• Scoring and summary screen
• Better item selection
• Solve parallel lines problem

Been having a lot of fun with this so far.. unfortunately I have to take a break to do some "real work" now :(. I'll post a screenshot when I've done some textures.

- Jack (Biscuit Games)

A screenshot, showing some of the textures that I've added to the game (game overview).

New todo list:

• Storm season
• Panel textures
• Sound effects
• Scoring and summary screen
• Heaps of playtesting

Bedtime now... :(

My game now has a name - "20,000 Light Years Into Space". There's a new screenshot showing an alien attack.

I'm almost ready to release an alpha version of the game, which does need a bit of testing! Just a few more things to do...

py2exe is the thing that I'm not looking forward to. I played with it a bit last night, and got really frustrated when it didn't do what I wanted immediately. Probably just me being thick, thoguh.

The first beta release of the game is now available. Instructions and game information are available from http://www.jwhitham.org.uk/biscuit_games/LightYears/ (they are also included in the ZIP file). If you have any comments or questions, do post them before, or ask in #pyweek - I am lurking there :).

"20,000 Light Years Into Space" is now finished. It is a steampunk-themed single player real-time strategy game, and now includes an interactive tutorial (hastily added at the last minute). Get it from the Pyweek website or http://www.jwhitham.org.uk/biscuit_games/LightYears/.

Thanks to everyone involved in Pyweek, particularly the Pyweek organisers, and thankyou also to my long-suffering testers. I'm looking forward to playing the other games.

Hi.. Thankyou very much to all the reviewers who left comments about my game (20K Light Years). There are some good suggestions, and I'm hoping that I'll get a chance to implement some of them for a new version! If you have other suggestions for this game, feel free to post them here or email me.

Thanks also to richard for a great competition (I hope I can come back for the next one). And congratulations to Rushed and Team Pekuja: excellent games.