OK, I couldn't think of any ideas that were both interesting and within my ability (my initial idea was a puzzle game in the style of the incredible machine, but that's beyond me at the moment) so I decided just to write a simulation of a string. That's taken much longer than I expected, and I'm not sure what's wrong with it but it's way too springy and if i try to make it less springy then it starts going crazy.

But, no matter, I can use that as part of the mechanic, so I've decided to write the game "Lunar Delivery". Basically lunar lander, with a springy, hard to control rope attached to the bottom of your ship(because.. uh.. that's all they can manufacture on the moon). You have to pick up packages and deliver them through a treaturous landscape without bashing up the package(or your ship) too much. I may also make an online scoreboard of some sort.

So.. pretty basic idea, but hopefully I can make it fun :)

I'm pretty ill, so i havn't been too productive today. I rewrote my rope class using verlet integration instead of euler, which has fixed the trouble I was having with it, if anyone else is having problems with a home-grown rope physics engine, look up verlet integration. I've also incorporated my ship into the game and made it movable, with the rope hanging off underneath it.

End of day 4(Morning of day 5)

There is currently no fun in my game... at all. I'm wondering how i'm going to be able to fix that.

You can now pick up boxes and deliver them and accumulate cash. There is currently no way to damage your ship or your packages, although collisions are working pretty well now, so it shouldn't be too hard to implement.

< 3 days left... need to make it fun!

Well, this is the state of my game so far, it's becoming more game-like, it has some rudimentary sounds. I'm feeling a lot better about it now than yesterday, mostly thanks to people on the IRC channel.

Things to add:

• Fuel - bar is displayed but is always full
• "roof terrain" - occassional roof terrain to make life a bit harder every now and then
• Upgrade, refuel and repair options when landed
• Menu
• Online score submission*

*if time allows

Regarding online score submission, is there any way to make that secure with an open source game? I've done it before with some kind of encryption, but as you can see the encryption algorithm, I can't really see any way to make it work.

any ideas?

I've labelled it 0.9 because I haven't tested it thoroughly enough yet, but it's pretty much done:

Download

It's a bit lacking in the fun department but it's got some gameplay value. Please let me know if anything doesn't work so I can fix it before the deadline.

Ok, well it's been over for a few days now. I had fun, although illness caused the week to be very draining. I started off with a few ideas with none of them well formed and not really any idea of how i'd go about implementing them. So I decided I'd start with a rope simulation. This used up two days (1st day using euler method, 2nd day rewriting using verlet integration which worked a lot better). Now I had a wobbly springy string with nothing to do with it.

Fleshing up a simple game around picking objects up and moving them about using your awkward springy rope, I came up with the idea for lunar delivery and came up with lots of ideas for the game that never got implemented at all. No matter... here's a few things I have learned:

Do physics after the concept. Perhaps this isn't always the right idea, but my game suffered because I was so focussed on the rope physics that I couldn't come up with any idea that didn't use it. I personally think the most fun entrys this pyweek were really the ones that didn't use rope physics. This is perhaps because not having to deal with physics frees up a lot of time to work on a better idea and more gameplay elements. Or perhaps because rope is kind of boring.

Fun - I don't think my game was all that fun, and related to the above.. I really should have come up with a fun idea first, rather than trying to come up with an idea around a rather boring toy physics thing.

I need to learn python - Similar to another post I saw on here, I realised that I wasn't really coding in python at all, I was merely coding in any other language and translating it over, so my code didn't use any nifty python features and tricks, because I didn't know them. At least this pyweek has got me more into python so that I can work on this for the future.

I will definitely be joining in more programming competitions, pyweek and others hopefully, and will hopefully be able to build up a catalog of things I have made

Any comments on my game would be appreciated, I know the concept wasn't that fun, but if you can think of ways that it could have been better, I'd love to know :) If you don't understand anything as well, just ask here and i'll try and help you.

Hi everyone, thank you for all your comments and ratings, I was surprised that there were so many quite positive ones. I really enjoyed my first pyweek, finally "completing" something and playing all your games :) well done all.

Simply a fun game. Adding some music or more art wouldn't hurt it though.

Thank you! You're right, more artwork and more sounds and music would be good

it reminded me of Lunar Lander, which is also a frustrating and not very fun game.

Hmph! I like lunar lander, and was(fairly obviously) what I based the initial idea from... But I do think the lunar lander physics concept doesn't extend so well to the huge world that I create... I will need to think about that.

would have liked it more if it had some sort of goal, maybe something to do with your money or a target amount of money to pass a level.

Yes, the money to upgrade your ship idea was an original feature that got scrapped at the end due to time (and possibly programmer lazyness.. but I was pretty ill all week and was feeling very worn out by the end) and it was my intention to eventually add a storyline as well... like you pick up a certain box and it would trigger the start of a little story arc, requiring you to pick up boxes and deliver them in time limit and such, but again, that was beyond my ability for the week.

It seems like all the packages are either pretty easy (like the first two) or next to impossible. Not much of a middle ground, so it was hard to get into.

I added 6 packages around the starting position that should have been quite easy and were way over-priced, so you can build up some money for fuel and repairs, but after that you have to search for the easier packages that you can do... I think another feature I should have added is more feedback about the packages (i.e. ones of bigger mass should have been bigger, and if they are really fragile they could have a red outline or something) so that it's easier to see what the package is like without having to stop and read every one.

It could have been great a pause key!

There is one! It's undocumented though, forgive me... it's escape, it pauses all the physics, although the sound and graphics still change when you use the thrusters(oops)

Fun game! I enjoyed the mechanic of the game, and had a good time with it for a few tries. I really enjoyed the premise of the game -- it made me want it to be better, but not because I was disappointed so much as I wanted more of it. I wanted to be able to have more powerful lateral control over my ship -- decelerating takes soooo long. Either stronger default thrusters or a shopping interface to spend credits on upgrades would be /sweet/. I also found some of the long deliveries to be... well... long. Especially with fragile packages, some of the tight squeezes make it nearly impossible to complete some of the tougher packages, since a certain amount of damage is guaranteed. Issues aside, it was a *really* well done and creative game -- great job!

Thank you very much for this comment! I've commented on a few of the points above already. I agree that the world is probably too big, or at least, the maximum distance for the package is too big. I just increased the lateral thruster strength, interesting effect, the game feels a lot(!) faster, but it makes landings and precision much harder... it probably needs some tuning to get that working right, but I guess I have to agree that lateral control was too weak.

This was an awesome game! The only thing i actually disliked were the controls. I felt kinda annoyed when trying to move my direction when in full speed. I know it was realistic but well, that's me :D I loved the way i shifted to another "level". Or at least that's what i felt it was :P. I moved all the packages when suddenly there was one which had a distance of 23k or something. Then at the end there were new packages. That was cool!

Hehehe, everything is randomised apart from the 6 packages that are closest to you when you start the game... I guess it was just luck that it worked out well for you :) In terms of the controls, I know they were difficult, I should experiment with them and see if i can find anything which feels "right" to me, but also makes for more fun and less irritation. Thank you very much for the kind comments.


Again, thank you all for your comments and games, hope to see you next pyweek :)

Ben