Solar Flair
Solar Flair
Solar Flair is a quirky, fun, interesting, and surprisingly difficult take on a platformer. Rather than horizontal motion, everything is vertical! You'll have to focus on two different evils: managing characters and the delicate balance between jumping and switching. Try to run away from the sunrise below.
Prerequisites
Python 2.7.x and Pygame 1.9.1 are required. Everything else should work as is. We are in the process of preparing redistributable packages for Windows users.
Running the Game
Headphones Recommended!
Install prerequisites above, then open a command prompt or terminal in the game directory, and type python main.py to execute it. That's it!
Settings can be changed in the config.py file. One of the challenges I wanted to address was display-resolution-independent rendering, so the default screen setting is RESIZABLE. Go ahead and resize the window however you like, the game will capture the events and resize it! However, if you would like to play full-screen, open up lib/config.py and change screen_setting to FULLSCREEN. Depending on your machine, you may be able to also use FULLSCREEN | HWSURFACE | DOUBLEBUF - use some combination of these flags and experiment for best performance!
If the game is running slowly on your machine, you can change the resolution to 1600 x 900 by changing width and height - please do not modify GAME_WIDTH or GAME_HEIGHT as these are used to calculate the game board and are not used for the display resolution.
You are the orange star. The enemy? The vast, unending space and sunrise below. Don't fall into the pit! Switch between the parallel universes to make your way as high as possible before burning out like the beautiful.
Up arrow - Switch universe
Space - Jump
Left + Right Arrows to move
If you do not like this key configuration, feel free to change the keys in lib/config.py.
Solar | Flair was coded by Luke Paireepinart. I am a professional C# developer who started life out as a Python developer many moons ago. Since Python was my O.G. language, and my wife Courtney has recently gotten into art, we decided Pyweek would be a good candidate for a quick game to test our mettle before we get into making a more epic game.
Features that we'd like to have implemented but didn't have time:
- Multiple background tracks with random selection
- High Score splash screen that lets you enter your initials
- Settings page
- Controller support
What's next for Solar | Flair? We want to release it on mobile devices and cross-platform, and the Python tools for that are just not great right now. We may try to run it under Kivy, but since we want to continually develop the game, we may decide to migrate to Unity as I am more familiar with the C# ecosystem.
Awards
Scores
Ratings (show detail)
Overall: 3.4
Fun: 3.2
Production: 3.3
Innovation: 3.8
Respondents: 11
Files
| File | Uploader | Date |
|---|---|---|
|
SOLAR_FLAIR.png
Solar Flair |
lukepdev | 2017/02/26 00:12 |
|
solar-flair-final.zip
— final
This is the final version of Solar Flair |
lukepdev | 2017/02/26 00:03 |
Diary Entries
Lunchtime brainstorming
bcpcp on 2017-02-19 19:57
Scrambling
lukepdev on 2017-02-25 22:49
Finished!!
lukepdev on 2017-02-26 00:09
It's been a really long time since I've finished a PyWeek. I did all of the programming work and my wife did all of the art. We found the music and fonts online free for noncommercial use and since this game is open-source, I think that counts. If you are interested, you can track the development on github @ https://github.com/lukevp/pyweek23. I took a code cut at 0:00 UTC and I am going to do some additional tweaking / code cleanup, but of course this will not be entered into the competition. I wish I had budgeted a bit more time to do some more testing.