It's not my intention to influence the theme voting, but since some people threw around some impressions on the themes, I'd like to throw my first impressions too.

Scuppers: Given the wikipedia definition, I would have no idea what to do with this theme. But according to this, it can also mean ambush or endanger. That does sound interesting, a game where you have to make or avoid ambushes. Still, it's not my favorite.

Tatlin's Tower: I like the concept, but it sounds somewhat closed to interpretation. On the other thread, saluk put some other interpretations of it, but I still can't think of anything that doesn't involve an actual tower. We've already had towers in Pyweek 4 ("The only way is up"), and we've already had twisted things in Pyweek 5, not to mention LD12 was about towers too. Therefore, I'd rather have another theme.

Half sovereign: First thing I thought wasn't the coin, but a king with half the power he's supposed to have. I like this one; sounds like it can lead to some nice ideas if people don't focus so much on the coin itself. On another thread, pymike was worried there would be too many stock exchange games, but I don't think that would happen, most of us know what's boring and what's not. Fighting dragons like saluk suggested is a nice interpretation, too. Or you could simply connect it to a Civilization-style game as j-1 suggested on another thread (I didn't think of it before j-1 mentioned it).

Get off my lawn: I like this one very much if you don't need to interpret a lawn as an actual lawn, but as a (home-like) territory like saluk said on another thread. In that case, it can be a lot of things: a war between countries, street turf wars, tower defense, a puzzle game about eliminating pieces, etc. Pretty much anything with a territory you can call your own where you have to kick the enemy out of it (or try not to be kicked out of an enemy territory). Even the intended idea of kicking the enemy out of a lawn sounds like fun. This one is the one most open to interpretation, in my opinion.

Sleeping bears: At first, I didn't have any ideas for this one, but then I googled it and found a link with the title, "Sleeping bears aren't meant to be poked". The link doesn't talk about actual bears, but I could imagine some funny games involving poking bears. :P Or maybe games where you have to sneak around sleeping bears, that sounds fun. Also, maybe you could interpret bears as powerful things instead of actual bears. I like this one.

So far, I have no good specific ideas for any of them. I'm considering my first impressions based on their potential for interesting ideas. Overall, I like the themes. I'll be thinking of ideas throughout the week. I've already voted and it wasn't a hard choice for me, but I might change it according to whatever ideas I have.

Remember that most likely other people have different opinions, so there's not much point in voting based on what I or others like or dislike. Vote on what you like or dislike.

I think I have settled on an idea. It's a bit innovative in the sense that I don't know many games like this, but it's something that might have crossed other people's minds, given that there's a quite direct relation to the theme (I hope no one's using the exact same idea). It feels like it could be very fun, though.

Unfortunately, it feels a bit too ambitious. I'm trying it anyway, but I don't feel confident I'll finish it the way I want it to be (well, I never do...). I'm not sure if I'll stick with it, so for now I'll just say it's a horror-themed strategy game.

Ok, time to work out the details.

For those who haven't made much progress with your game: you can cheer up now. My progress is going just as "well".

I spent most of the Sunday perfecting a graphic that now I think it's too big, and because I was polishing it, it's now pretty much impossible to animate it without spending too much time. Well, at least it was fun. :P

Today I was unfortunately busy with other stuff, but I was able to write a bit of code (very little, though).

Considering the scope of my project (big), things aren't going so well. But I'm still optimistic. I have the design which is mostly done (needs more details on a few aspects, but the big picture is there), I have a neat graphic (to my programmer standards, of course), and I have a little code. I'll have something to show, even if I have to make a completely different game in the last 8 hours like I did last Pyweek. Hopefully the next days will be better.

This seems to be recurrent in my Pyweeks, actually...

I really messed up this time.

I have no gameplay so far because I've been constantly working on art. I was too ambitious with the game. The game is somewhat graphics-heavy, and I went with the pixel art route. I have some art, and it's looking quite nice for my standards. But making art is taking too much time, and I have barely touched the code.

I'm not sure you'll see a completed game from me. I can't even disguise it because there's a lot to do for the core of the game and most of the things to cut are quite important to the gameplay. But I'll do whatever I can to at least submit a half game. (If only the theme were "half sovereign", maybe I could've gotten away with this... :P "Get off my half lawn!")

I'm not making a new game because I really like where this idea took me (I think the game design ended up quite nice, too, but I'm not sure you'll get to see the whole of it), and I at least want to show it to you guys, even if it doesn't come with a complete game (which means low ratings, but I'm more after the comments). Wish me luck.

Oh, and I might as well tell the core idea now. Not coming with a screenshot, unfortunately. It's quite simple, actually: you control a haunted mansion and you have to spook families and investigators out of your "lawn". The gameplay is strategy and resource management (yes, you need resources to do your spooky things). I'll leave the details for later.

I'm feeling a bit lost.

I've managed to finish the art except for the animations. I'm trying to skip the animations and add gameplay, but it's much more complicated that it sounds. Not to mention the animations are kind of vital to my game. Unfortunately, you might not see gameplay from me this time. I'm wondering if I really should submit it anyway. It might be a waste of time for the judges, but I think I will submit it only so I can judge other games.

I'm tired, yet there is still an endless amount of stuff to do. This Pyweek is killing me. Next time, I need to remember to go easy on the idea.

Only 23 more hours to go.

Like I wrote in previous posts, I won't be able to put gameplay in my game. There's still too much to do; I'm quite sure I can't put gameplay in today. So I've decided to give up on this game. Sorry, I have to know when to acknowledge defeat. :(

I'm taking the same route I took last Pyweek and will write a simple game in the next few hours, mostly because I want to be able to judge the games.

I feel like I failed, because there's so much I did (especially on the art side) and I'm not using any of that. Maybe for the Pyggy awards (I hope it's ok to work on a game that I haven't submitted...). So, this is it, now I guess I'll just finish this other game. But this Pyweek is like a DNF for me.

I think I will make a few comments about the haunted mansion game after Pyweek - the plans turned out quite nice, I just failed the execution. Is anyone interested? I won't post the game here because it's a real mess, but if you're interested to see the "game" itself, let me know on IRC after the end of Pyweek; I'd be happy to show you.

Well, I finished my "backup plan entry" a few minutes ago. I'm still frustrated I wasn't able to finish my real entry. I spent a lot of time on it (mostly on the art, actually) and it felt like it would become a nice game. I really wanted to see it finished in this Pyweek. Maybe I'll work on it on the Pyggy awards (if I'm allowed to, even if I didn't submit a version of the game), but it's not the same thing.

Anyway, I can rest now. The title of the game I just made is Chess vs Zombies. The game is pretty much what the title says. :P

I'm really looking forward to playing your games (some in particular look quite impressive). :)

Going straight to the point, I'd like more Pyweeks. :)

Actually, I kind of like having twice a year Pyweeks, my suggestion is a bit different. I don't participate in Ludum Dares very often and others may know better about this (please comment if you do), but I know they have mini-LDs, which are more relaxed, unofficial LDs, in lesser scale, with no theme voting (themes chosen by a person or maybe on a discussion on IRC, I'm not sure, and sometimes they're more experimental) and with fewer entries. Does the thought of mini-Pyweeks interest you? It's just a suggestion to have more Pyweeks; perhaps a mini-Pyweek every one or two months outside the main event. Someone more informed could tell us if mini-LDs work well and what problems they have, if they have any.

They would possibly be separated from the main site (mini.pyweek.org, maybe), because the idea of mini-Pyweeks would be a more relaxed, more experimental and more frequent Pyweek, which probably would mean lesser games not so good as the ones in real Pyweeks, and therefore it would be better to keep the games separate. As with Pyggy, someone else instead of Richard can be in charge of it so he doesn't need to spend much time on it. If there's interest and approval and the only thing we'd need is someone to work on it, I'd be up for it, but I don't mind if someone else wants to work on it.

Well, I scored better than I expected. At least I got a high innovation score for trying out an experimental idea - it was higher than I was expecting. I'm happy that most people who rated liked the game. I got only a few raters though. Maybe I was lucky to get only the kind judges. :)

A few replies:

Should of probably made the chess board out of grass or something though - theme was totally ignored.

Not much lawn though, so I checked "disqualify".

I don't think the theme was totally ignored. The idea did come from the theme; the chess pieces are defending their chess board, which is their territory, their "lawn". I think if I made it out of grass, the theme would feel tacked on. But, well, it isn't exactly lawn, so I understand.


(kings are supposed to be able to move in all 8 directions...)

Since when can a king not move diagonal, though?

Gaaaah! *shoots himself*

That's what happens when you rush through making the game and don't think much. :P


If there were some easier way to control the pieces, this would be kinda fun.

If you don't mind, I'd like to hear a suggestion. :)


I really appreciated reading your comments. If you commented on my game, thank you very much. They made me happy. :)

I wonder, is anyone interested on a quick Pyggy version of this game? Just fix the king, balance, add sounds, and make it into a real game. I'd also like to make the controls easier, but I'm not sure how I'd do it. I also intended to have zombies go for the pieces and attack from both sides (but I didn't have time to draw the zombies in all directions and had to make it come only from below and walk up :)), so a Pyggy version would probably have that too. Either way, I won't spend much time on it because I want to work on my main entry, but since some people seemed to like the idea, I could at least make it decent if people are interested. Does that interest you? Does anyone have any other ideas?

Anyway, thanks for all the nice comments! Thanks to Richard for hosting this Pyweek! Congratulations to the Super Effective and Cosmologicon! I was a bit frustrated this Pyweek, but the comments made me satisfied. :) See you in Pyggy or in next Pyweek! Next Pyweek, I'll try not to be too ambitious and make a 7-day game.

As for my original entry, see my Pyggy post.