Hey all,

First, a quick introduction about myself. Pyweek 1, didn't finish a game, pyweek 2, finished an incomplete game (= no polish), pyweek 3, missed it entirely, so I'm back here on pyweek 4. :)

Pyweek is just an excuse for me to spare some time and create a game, I don't intend to win or anything. :P

Anyway, I was working on a warm-up game, but I kinda dropped it, because it wasn't looking good and didn't have the time to finish it. Maybe I'll continue it but I'm not sure about it.

So, I decided to comment a bit on each warm-up game submitted.


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saluk: one_0.2

At first try, it was stopping at loading the font. I think I'm missing Arial (I'm on Linux, Ubuntu 6.10). Switched it to pygame.font.get_default_font() and it worked.

It's nice for some quick fun, and I liked the idea of using 1 second for the theme. The 3 2 1 annoys me a bit, though, and sometimes I lost because I collided, yet I wasn't close enough (but, yes, doing a nicer collision can be annoying :)).


Hectigo: One is Enough.

It was complaining about not finding the modules when I tried running run_game.py, so I had to run main.py directly with a few modifications. Also, just to let you know, I'm getting some deprecation warnings during the game:

/tmp/one is enough/bin/bank.py:26: DeprecationWarning: integer argument expected, got float
  scaledimage = pygame.transform.scale(self.image, (self.rect.width, self.height))

I wasn't able to figure out a few things. What's the difference between the red bar and the yellow bar? And what does sending a ball to labour camp do aside giving you points?

I keep losing, but, then again, I lose everywhere. :) I started holding down Z to always regenerate faster and I did a bit better, but eventually lost. (Really, I can't beat this game. Gah.)

The visuals are simple, but I like them. I would like the game more if I could just figure out a winning strategy, but I enjoy a good challenge anyway. :)


JDruid: Sticky Bomb

I like the music (though I prefer your other music from Funny Boat from Pyweek 2), and I think the idea is original and good. Catching bombs in the air and throwing them far away (or not, see below) was fun.

More than a few times, I forgot bombs bounced on edges and tried to throw them off screen. The result was the same as, um, throwing a grenade at a wall. :)


RB[0]: Balloon Ballistics

Strange error when trying to start a game from the main menu. Anyone help? I can't figure it out.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "BB.py", line 504, in ?
    main()
  File "BB.py", line 484, in main
    cur = play("level1.txt")
  File "BB.py", line 57, in play
    level_type(onlevel)
  File "BB.py", line 253, in level_type
    level_data=load_level.load_dict(os.path.join("levels",on_level))
  File "LIB/load_level.py", line 34, in load_dict
    a = load(f)
  File "LIB/load_level.py", line 25, in load
    exec(f)
  File "", line 1
    mode="get_to_1"
                   ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

eugman's incomplete game

Well, if you think it's going to be fun, then I think you should complete it. I can't say much because just by playing it I have no idea what it is. :P

--

(Ugh. I vote on having a larger text box here on Add Diary Entry. :P How do I avoid having to write all linebreaks?)

Am I missing any game?

Today I had some spare time, so I decided to finish my pyweek warmup game. It's very simplified from what I intended it to be, but at least it's somewhat finished.

Download White Pixel Ninja here. Feedback is appreciated.

One pixel was enough to make a ninja. :)

I'm going to keep my "most likely idea" under the table for a while, but it does have a similar concept to another idea I've seen in another post, yet it has a completely different focus. The problem with this idea, though, is that it'll take a while both to design and produce, so the odds aren't low that I won't finish this time. No code or art yet, I'm just fleshing out the idea.

Anyway, have fun everyone. :)

...and the higher seems my odds of not finishing the game in time. But since I'm doing this just for fun, I'm going to push on.

I decided to work on the graphics before the code, but I'm not an artist, and my idea would be nice with some isometric pixel art. My first attempts are taking too long without any good results. I guess I'll have to figure out some other way. Too late to think of another idea now.

By the way, I've seen a lot of good things on other posts. Congratulations to those who already have something playable.

Well, I have the interface done (kinda - still a few issues to tackle), but I can't get the gameplay right, and at this rate I'm definitely not confident I'm going to finish the gameplay in time.

At this point I guess I should reveal what my game is. I was waiting until I had a prototype ready, but by now it's just too late.

The name of the game is 'Welcome to WC' (WC stands for World Corporation). You start off as a lowly trainee and it's your job to take over the company. Working isn't enough, so you get to spy for others' secrets and blackmail them, sabotage people so they get fired, and other stuff like that. You even get to meet a janitor (named 'The Janitor') who trades secrets with you. Your goal is to make people like you (or pretend to like you, depending on your means) so you get promoted to the top. Or at least that was the original plan.

In paper, this idea sounded good, but my execution was horrible. But at least I learned a lot.

Still, what do you think, should I submit the game even without the gameplay? Most people would probably disclassify me, but maybe I get some score for pity. :P Should I add an "unfinished" to the filename if I do so?

By the way, there are so many awesome entries this time. I wouldn't get a good score even if I had a perfect execution.

It was a great pyweek. :)

Thanks to Richard for allowing this competition to exist. I noticed this pyweek there are many very good entries, I'm really looking forward to play them all.

Friday, I was desperate, but yesterday was more productive than I thought. I managed to add some gameplay and finished about an hour and something before the deadline, and I'm quite happy with the result considering the situation Friday. Unfortunately I wasn't able to test it very well, so you'll probably find bugs and gameplay unbalance.

I originally intended it to have pixel isometric art with drawings of offices and such, but that started to take a lot of time. So, when I was drawing, I turned on the grid to help me draw, then I realized the grid could be an interesting background. Then I started messing around and the idea of a blueprint came up. That had solved a lot of problems, and I did the graphics very fast and, while not as good looking as pixel art, it still has some style.

I haven't tested enough to the (winning) end game. Technically, you can win, so if anyone wins, let me know. :)

I'm just a bit frustrated that after the competition I saw there was a game that looked very much like mine (on one of my first posts I said there was one similar, but I was talking about the career one, which doesn't look so much like mine as this other one), but, then again, there were a lot of entries, so it was hard to make something original. There are a lot of balloon games. :P

Anyway, congratulations to those who finished. I really learned a lot on this pyweek. :) I'm downloading the games through the torrent.

On to pyweek 5.

Beware, large post. :) I'm replying to everyone who rated my game.


Very comprehensive gameplay, a little more in the graphics/sound department wouldn't hurt.
Yep, I agree. If I had managed to do my original plan (pixel art), it would have been great. But I like the current graphics because I did them so fast and they kinda look nice. :P As for sound, I wanted to add it, but I ended up scrapping it for more important stuff.

Interesting. But I haven't seen how the skills affect the game.
Productivity is pretty useless, just raises your paycheck a bit. Socialization is kinda useless, too. Subterfuge is the most important, because almost everything looks at subterfuge to know its chance of succeeding.

Nice game, but perhaps unfinished? I couldn't figure out how to win... Maybe I was missing something, I did try playing it several different ways :(
Well, yeah, it lacked tweaking. :(

Neat idea, nice graphics. Needs more balancing and challenge to add fun. I couldn't win the game though. I can't seem to surpass 95% reputation and can't surpass Director. Maybe I need to bribe more? Shrug.
I haven't won the game yet, but some say they did. :P

Seemed to take too long to get promoted. I was the only person with reputation in the game (about 96% IIRC - had 100% relation with everybody else), but I didn't seem to be going up. Maybe I should have not kept bashing everybody down to 0% relation and 100% rep.
Yeah, lacked tweaking...

At first glance it seemed really complicated and I shelved it for the end of my reviewing session, but picking it back up again, reading the readme, it's not that complicated and is actually a lot of fun! The game lasts pretty long so a save feature would have been nice. As it is I am leaving it open until I win. Thanks for the funness.
Cool, I'm glad someone enjoyed it. Thanks!

x Add a screenshot to your game, its easier to find on the entry-list page that way and makes it easier to remember. + Fun game! + Nice graphics - I can never remember which day/week its fire/promote time, so some sort of indication of how long its left whould have been nice. - There is a bug when you become the Executive Vice-President, the text is to long :) - What is "prentend to work" good for? - The game eats 100% cpu.. (Even if Ive written more on - than on +, the game is more + than - :)
Yeah, by the time I wanted to add a screenshot, the server was completely lagged. I'm glad I uploaded the game first. :P Thanks. Fire/promote time happens every bimester, but I should've added it. The fact that I haven't tested it very well means you'll eventually find bugs. :P Pretend to work gives you an extra action if you succeed (ok, maybe not that useful). 100% CPU, hmm, well, I'm not a good coder. :P I just do a loop polling for events and having a Clock tick. Any suggestions on how should I do next time?

it doesn't have any bugs that i noticed but the game is not complete - there is no possibility to win and it is getting boring very fast
No bugs? Um, sounds odd because I haven't tested it well, but great. :P Yeah, you can win (or at least people say so). :P Yeah, I guess it gets boring very fast. :)

Nice concept. Just needs some balancing :-)
I agree. :)

There was a lot of polish on this. I liked the concept. It is funny that there were a couple of climb the social ladder games, this is one of the better.
I'm not sure there's a lot of polish, there's not even sound. But thanks. :) I think PyCor's was better than mine, although it goes a different direction.

I didn't manage to win the game or get far - but I always thought "let's try this one last thing", so I'd say it's fun but needs more options or a clearer direction
I admit I'm not good at explaining things clearly. Thanks for the suggestion. :) As for more options, I had a long list of features but I had to throw a lot of them away.

this was pretty fun, especially when I destroyed everyones reputation around me. The ending screen was confusing. Does OWNED! mean I now own the company or that since I destroyed everyone's reputation they threw me off the building and I'm trailing mony behind me? could have used some more interesting visuals and sounds though. Otherwise very fun.
Means you've owned them all. Or, you could look at it that way, but think of the bright side, you're dying rich. :)

points for exploring the "turn based office politics sim" genre.
Whee, points are fun!

Nice selection of font and graphics. The game is very polished, But not my kind of game.
To be honest, I don't play many games of this kind either. But I wanted to try it anyway.

Pretty decent game, it got a little meticulous near the end, and the skills and abilities seemed a little skewed, but otherwise a good entry.
Thanks. Again, lacked tweaking.

It could of been better but I liked what was made.
Yes, could have been better.

This is a very mean game. And FUN (although I'll probably not play this release over and over again - not enough content and challenge yet). Hope you'll keep going!
Thanks. I don't have the habit of completing pyweek games (even though last time I said I would), but, who knows. :P

Haha! Excellent game! It was especially fun right at the beginning before I knew what I was doing -- I snooped for too many secrets, and eventually just learned to bide my time and work up my subterfuge and socialization skills. It was a really good game that way -- excellently creative! The graphical look and feel was fantastic -- I really enjoyed it. The interface was wonderfully polished as well -- it was just an excellent game overall. More variation could help make the game hold more replay value in the future, but as such, it was a very fun game as it is. The end was slightly unsatisfying, as I never actually got the "John Doe Has Been Promoted" message, and never actually saw "President" next to my name (it still had the title of "Executive VP"). Regardless, thanks for the fun game!
I'm happy you enjoyed it, thank YOU for playing. :)

i love sims
Yay.

Nice game thingy...
Yay again. (Ok, I don't know what to reply to short comments. :P)

There seemed to be some quirks with the promotions... at one point I had a 95% reputation but I hadn't sullied anyones reputation above mine despite my reputation being 3x anyone ahead of me and having a 100% relationship with all of the people above theirs, and I still wasn't getting a promotion. This game kind of reminded me of those old Lemonaide stand type games for the Apple II.
Hmm, odd. I'll look into it if I decide to complete it.

Nice game! As pointed out by you there are some additions to the AI missing (working against the player character etc.), but what you have done within this one week looks good :)
Cool, thanks. :)

I liked this game, and I played all the way to the top. I am not sure whether I'd play it again after finishing it once, but it did keep my attention quite a while. The user interface is clear and easy. The concept is quite innovative as well, and fits the team well. It's a rather dismal view of the corporate world, but oh well. :) I would be interesting in seeing ways to enhance the replayability of this game however. Perhaps the unexpected happens once every while. Perhaps some mini games. Perhaps the player gets secrets. I'm not sure. Nice effort! I enjoyed this game.
Yeah, I agree, the way it is it isn't very replayable. In fact, two out of the three things you said were on the original plan.

Well, the game is winnable, but the gameplay leaves much to be desired. Optimizing one's career advancement isn't that interesting, and doesn't feel like one is very involved in the whole thing - better writing would've helped to keep the player interested. The game could tell what kind of secrets the player finds out and exposes, for example. I like the graphical style, but the UI is not very straightforward for the beginner - it takes a while to understand what things are clickable on the map. Emphasizing the texts graphically would've definitely helped.
Your example was on my original plan. :) As for improving UI, it's a good idea. But I figured I'd just leave on the readme that texts on the map are clickable. Took less time. :P

Reminds me of a Sim game. Nice work.
Thanks.

Very cool! Work your way up the corporate ladder by being sneaky and pretending to work. I played it to the end.
Thanks for playing it to the end. :)

I liked the look of the game, but simulation type games aren't really my thing. Socializing your way to the top of the corporate ladder isn't all that fun in my opinion, but I'm sure others might think so.
Yeah, I don't play many sim games either, but I thought it would be interesting to try to build one.

Really fun! A bit intimidating at first, but once you got the hang of it, it wasn't that bad.
I think the intimidation can be lessened by a friendlier UI like suggested in another comment. Thanks. :)

I kinda liked this one. I just wish it had some other different activities to be done and other events in the game. The graphics, though looking very amateurish, actually add to ambience. As with most pyweek entries, I missed some sound effects and soundtrack. Maybe some elevator music would be perfect for this game. ;)
Yes, I wish there were more things to do too. :P Elevator music, ooh, good idea.

This game was interesting. It's one of the few that I've played so far that I'm actually planning on going back to, mostly out of curiousity and to try a couple new strategies. Anyways, it was certainly better than most. I didn't get as much feedback as I'd like: "a week has passed..." doesn't do much for me. There could have been a little more excitement in that arena, I suppose, or maybe I'll discover it when I play longer.
Yay, someone who wants to replay the game, thanks for, um, wanting to replay the game. :) Hmm, I'm not sure I understand what kind of feedback would be better. Maybe a screen of feedback, talking about the events of the week?


Thanks to everyone who commented. I'll take your suggestions if I ever decide to add more to this game. :) (I don't have the habit, though.)

I figured I should write a postmortem, just to let you all know how it went. I'd like to encourage others to write one too.

What Went Wrong

• Time: I spent way too much time in this game. I sacrificed a few other (real life) things just to finish the game. Probably this came from having to redo a lot of things (code and art).
  
  
• Lack of code planning: This wasted a lot of time. I had to redo several sections of the code because it was very messy. And yet, it's still messy. :P
  
  
• Pixel art: I spent a day or two trying to draw some pixel art. My original intention was to create pixel art offices, but that turned out to be too hard and too time consuming. Fortunately, I figured out an alternative.
  
  
• Unbalancing and lack of testing: I think this was the biggest mistake. I should have spared more time for testing and tweaking.
  
  
• Strategy game: This is the first strategy game I've ever made, so I'm not used to it. Making something different teached me a few lessons, though.
  
  

What Went Right

• Finished: Woohoo, I finished it! :)
  
  
• To-do list: Saturday morning I decided to make a to-do list. It's only a to-do list, but it significantly increased my productivity, because I always knew what I'm going to do next, and there's that feeling of accomplishment (and consequently motivation) when you cross out one of the items. :)
  
  
• Graphics: I'm actually pretty surprised what I was able to do with the graphics. I had a totally different idea at first, but I ended up with graphics that, while far from being cool-looking as pixel art, they also look good, and, most importantly, it didn't take so much of my time to draw them.
  
  

Unimplemented Features

• Items: There would be items that would give you bonuses and such. For example, you'd be able to buy a rendering screensaver, which would improve your chances of faking work ("Sorry, boss, I can't work while it's rendering.").
  
  
• Levels and descriptions of secrets: Secrets would have various levels, and each would have a description of sorts. Of course, the worse the secret, the more money or reputation you'd be able to get.
  
  
• Savegames: In a strategy game, savegames are pretty important. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to implement that.
  
  
• People working against you: And you'd also have secrets and stuff, including secrets acquired while doing sneaky stuff. And people would also blackmail you or expose your secrets in an attempt to gain money or destroy your reputation.
  
  
• Stocks: You would be able to buy stocks, which depend on how the company goes. If you have a higher position, you'd be able to influence more how the stocks go, maybe even release rumors as to raise or lower the price of stocks.
  
  
• Different endings: Instead of destroying the reputation of the CEO, you'd be able to buy more than 50% of stocks to own the company.
  
  
• Name and gender choosing, interview: You would be able to choose your name and gender. Also, an interview would allow you to change how much money you'd start with, your initial stats and initial reputation.
  
  
• Random events: Where you find out new secrets accidentally, or gain new secrets for other people to use against you, or work bonus, or stuff like that.
  
  
• Music and sounds: It's just a strategy game so music and sounds aren't that important, but it would add something to the game.
  
  

Conclusion

Wow, writing a list like this makes me see there were a lot of features I threw away. I hadn't noticed that.

Although the idea isn't bad, I wish I had thought of something more creative and fun.

I don't think I went too bad, but I could've done much better. I think if I had spared just a few hours to tweak it, the game would be more playable. So, I'm not sure whether this is a victory or a defeat (in terms of whether I'm satisfied with the game or not), so I'll call it a tie and move on to the next pyweek. :)

Anyway, see you all again on Pyweek 5. It was fun, thanks everyone, especially to Richard for hosting it again. :) Congratulations to Hectigo and TOBA. :)

Hey, I noticed Pyweek was featured on Joystiq. Neat!

I'm not sure if many people are still reading these posts, but I have a question and I figured here would be a nice place to ask.

I only create games when competitions like Pyweek and LD48 are run (though I've never finished a LD48 game), but I'd like to do it more often. The problem that I never seem to be motivated and/or find time to do them, because other life issues always have a higher precendence. It seems different when I'm on Pyweek, though, because I feel motivated to put aside other things just to make a game. Maybe because I know others will play and talk about it, I don't know. I really enjoy creating games and I wish I would be motivated more often than twice a year (although it's a great start, thanks to Pyweek :)).

A few days after Pyweek ended, I was talking to eugman about it and he thought maybe if I joined some community of game developers I would be more motivated to create games. Recently I was thinking about it. Perhaps it would help. Does anyone know a good community like this? Here's what I'm thinking about:

• Others test your games and review them, giving you suggestions and constructive criticism. You can test their games as well.
  
  
• Friendly. This is pretty obvious, and the most important. No people who are there just to annoy, troll, flame, or give unconstructive criticism (like just saying "This game sucks!" and nothing more). This is why I would prefer small communities rather than big; (statistically speaking) in bigger communities there are more people like this.
  
  
• Helpful. If you have some problems with your game, people can help and contribute with ideas.
  
  
• No commitment. Although I want to create games more often, other life issues are still more important. Maybe what I mean by this is to be able to participate in a passive way, like not having to check the site all the time and instead receive news and links to games to test on feeds or email. But, with time, if I like the community, I'd contribute more and be more active.
  
  
• Not just a forum, but a place where you can start projects, add blog posts related to the project, and post the game there. A structure similar to Pyweek.
  
  

Fine, I'm basically thinking of Pyweek without the problem of being twice a year. :)

So, does anyone know a community of game developers that attend these characteristics?