Got a group of friends together, I said 'let's make a game' they said 'why not' and so it was.#

The team is:

Ali: Programmer
Charlie: Programmer
Luke: Design
Fred: Tester

Together we are Frank.

Day one:

Got together with Luke to 'mind map' our ideas on the theme. I had benn fermenting an idea of making a 'Pang 96' remake; Luke basically said "No". Rightly so, we want to make something fresh and new and remake aren't that. So with that mind we took inspiration from the theme and my favourite mad scientist - Nikola Tesla - and came up with some kind of quantum physic, electromagnetism inspired idea. Sweet.

Day Two:

Bank holiday in the UK. YES! Plenty of time to code, or at least that's what I thought, it went something like this:

14:03
At this point we have two players that move, using accelaration.
The players bounce off walls and switch sides.
BREAK
15:45
Created simple magnet class, they move and bounce off the walls
16:12
The attempt to implement gravity...
16:32
Gravity implemented. Messign around with the gravitational contant is quite fun, really fun infact.
Getting some really cool sling-shot mechanics.
Now time to create some destructive particles.
17:09
Added timer so that we can set rate of 'particle' pulse.
18:45
Took flipping ages to get the particles to create where the player is...
But finally done and it looks good.

So all in all, mechanics of the game nearly done. I am pleased. Latest screen shot to come...

Day three went well, not as much time spent coding as I'd like but you know what they say "slow and steady..."

So yesterday I got the particles(bullets) to work and have limited life. I made the magnets(baddies) die when the partciles hit them but now I've reached a stage where I need help!

First: I'm fairly new to python, pygame and programming in general and having trouble getting py2exe to work, it isn't copying any of the files I ask it to.

Second: Anyone know any good animation tutorials/ examples using pygame?

Third: What the best way to implement a title menu and end highscore?

Sorry if that's a bit vague I really am in unknown territory now. Many thanks.

 

As I got to a kind of writer's block on day four I asked for help and I want to thank bitcraft and BlueDragon for their help.

I watched the video BlueDragon recommended, and was impressed I now have a fully functioning menu in my game and it was so easy (google 'kezmenu'). I also think I may need to rethink the 'player lives' part of the game... try something new...

Anyway day five is upon me and I'm now getting the game ready for art and such, as much of it is just simple pygame.draw functions atm. Maybe i'll use lepton?

Good News!

We managed to upload our game, python: PULSAR

It was so stressful towards the end, all of a sudden the game just started to break. I couldn't handle the pressure, then Luke my team mate reassured me and all became well again.

The game I feel I am happy with, I've not been into programming long so this was a challenging experience, but I can honestly say i have learnt so much.

I feel we made the write decision to go with an arcade game, not too complicated to implement, but it should be no less fun! I think the idea we had was good, and I think it's original? (let me know if you know of similarities)

Anyway I hope that if you've read this far, you'll venture to play our game.

Want to say a massive thanks to my team mates, bitcraft, blueDragon, python, pygame and all the people who make this competition happen(or is it just one guy?)

Signing out, yours oh so truly,

Ali

Python Pulsar is one of the most addictive games I've ever played.
If you have ever had FIFA or CoD rage, you will probably experience a similar level of self-competitiveness(?) with this haha.



So far we've just revealed concept art, so here's a couple screenshots to give you a feel of the in-game atmosphere.



We've designed a tutorial in-game, just click on 'Enlighten' on the Menu screen.
The basics are that you control the white orb (Pulsar) which emits those pink things (Particles) and generated energy by hitting the black orbs (Gravitons). It's actually really tricky though because those Gravitons, have their own gravity which will suck you in and weaken your Pulsar's stability. Not to mention the fact they multiply when you've sapped enough energy out of them so the screen quickly fills making it harder to float around. When things get too much just press spacebar to swap screens (Instances) and take on the challenge from their.

Mac users even get a nifty little icon on their dock and everybody gets local highscores, which we think is pretty sweet!



Just click my name, to play the game.
Leave your highscores in a comment below!
Mine's 835.7.

Having played a couple of games from this years submissions I'd have to say Conway has really impressed me! It's such a fun game, I quickly found myself creating chain-reactions and pixel characters than don't do a lot of damage, but remind me of space invaders, and that can only be a good thing right?

Conway:


Looking forward to playing some more before a new week begins.
Which games are taking your fancy?

All the best,
Luke.