I'm almost ready to drop out at the first hurdle; I can't think of anything interesting I can program that involves string. I've already got an idea for a plot, but am not sure how to approach it. I could try and code a piece of interactive fiction to get over having to code and create as much graphical foobar, but the game will probably end up somewhat meh.

I've got most of the plot eked out, which is currently displaying on console when the game module is run. Now I need to start working on some form of room format, user interface (to start off with, it'll be text-based, but I've been toying with the idea of using a Pygame screen to display such things as help and inventory, more persistent information in other words) once I've got the console stuff worked out. I'm going to custom-write this, which means it's going to suck awfully because I'm lazy etc, and will probably only be half-finished when I hand it in, but I'm sure by the next pyweek or the one after that I'll manage to program actual games and not just interactive console romps.

I've now written a simple pygame line-writer, so that I can get the lazy programmer benefits of a text-based game in a pygame window (also to make the events thing fire properly without having to use either a graphical interface or pure console).

Also, I noticed the music mixer (which I'm using to crank out silly disco songs while the game plays) was repeatedly static-ing up on Ubuntu, so I googled and found a fix; however, it was in the copy-and-paste form of pygame.mixer.pre_init(44100, -16, 2, 4096) I hope this is within the rules! D=

I just haven't had the drive to code anything today. With school eating up a sizeable portion of my free time, and no real drive to code anything, I doubt I'll be able to start properly working on this until the closing days of the competition, if at all. I might just shelf this, develop it after PyWeek and hrh. Progress I have made since last diary entry includes creating the basic room and feature (static object that cannot be taken) classes. One can now press L (look) and be shown a menu of all examinable objects in the room (including the room itself), and be served descriptions of everything. I'm scared I'm just going to give up and not try coding the harder stuff (an algorithm to create a map of rooms, place locked doors and keys in sensible places, actual puzzles and stuff) and end up crashing and burning and ugh. I'm going to try for a team next time, I just don't have the attention span.

I just don't feel like programming anything today. I think I'm heading for a dropout. =(

One more day to do this, and I'm yet again feeling like I'd rather put my head in a blender than code anything else today. If I was to tie up all loose ends and release this, it would be so devoid of fun and point that it'd probably hit bottom anyway. (I've already scrapped almost everything I wanted to do, and I doubt I could design and code sufficient text-based puzzles for the string rooms)

So, unless I post anything else, consider this entry dead. I just don't think it's worth finishing anymore, not for the end of this competition at least.

Hopefully in the future I'll have more free time, more drive, better programming skills (part of the problem with this was that I couldn't map the theme to a game design I could code), maybe a team, and a theme I can work with. The only reason I signed up for this at this time was because everyone was like "yes you can do it you idiot you're being dumb for not trying", oh well, I tried and predictably failed.

Sorry everyone x.x;;