These themes are great! At first I was like WTF as probably most people initially reacted. But overnight I warmed up to most of them. The only one I don't really like is sleeping bears, although I have ideas for it as well. Each one almost has several meanings built in. For instance, tatlin's tower could be about the tower, or it could be bout tatlin and his failed attempts to get the tower built, or it could be about abandoned production projects in general, or it could be about tatlin's other ideas which were even more insane...

Half sovereign could be about sorting money, fighting dragons (it's on the coin), something to do with kings/rulers, or some kind of economic battle (as long as it's not a boring spreadsheet app, it could be cool too).

The first thing I think of with scupper is "scupper sweeper", a frantic casual game involving unclogging the drains :) But there is also the verb "to scupper", which is about destruction. Well, that is about as open ended a theme as you can get, since most games are about destruction anyway. Heh, maybe a game where you have to destroy houses by clogging the roof drains during a heavy rain for the double whammy.

Get off my lawn could be about chasing kids off the lawn, of course, but the lawn in question could be expanded to any kind of territory that needs protecting. But Get off my Lawn and Sleeping Bears are a little more limiting than the others, I will be voting them down.

Since everyone is making tower defense games, we decided to go against the grain and make an adventure game. Ok, truth be told, we were kind of thinking along these lines long before the contest, and most of our candidate ideas were also adventures. These themes kind of asked for it!

Fortunately, most of the base engine is completed already, and we've made a head start on some of the art. Unfortunately, finishing the engine in this case is the east part - the art is going to be the most time consuming and difficult part of creating the game.

Day 1/1.5 progress:

Post-mortem (did I say quick? I lied)
Another pyweek, another set of gray hair. Why do this to myself? If I knew that I would be a much wiser man. Our plan of making an adventure game this time around backfired on many levels, but we still managed to complete something that I am fairly proud of.

The biggest problem we had, it turned out, was that while I was happy the first few days that coding the engine was going so well, I neglected to plan for all of the content and logic that we would have to put in to make the game actually work later on. Not that functional programming is bad, but I lapsed too much into funcionalism for different kinds of logic in the game that ended up making creating the puzzles and inserting objects into the screens very time consuming. Next time: focus on tools to help make adding content very easy. Last time we had a decent level editor that helped a lot, and though it was a very different type of game, I could have gone further to make scripting it more fun.

The second problem was that we chose an art-heavy game, and didn't have the time to work on it to really make a good attempt with the art. Some things look good, other things look bad, and none of the art is very cohesive. Still, I think continuing to choose art-heavy games is good in the long run, since it is the area we most need improvement.

Lastly, mercurial. My teammate and I, for the most part, were both working on the same code file. This would have been extremely painful in svn, but even with hg it probably would have been better to separate our work. It turns out tortoiseHG is just far too slow for rapid development - having to rightclick all the time and go to specialized menus for things. By the end, we were mostly using the command line, and it was a bit better. Having to commit, pull, merge, commit, and update on both sides whenever there were conflicts though, was really annoying. An automatic option to "synchronize" with a remote host, and make both sides the same, would be very welcome. Obviously, in other situations, the ability to do different operations independently is useful, but in this case, not so much. Before next pyweek I am going to look at writing a script to automate this process.


Hints
Most of the puzzles in Yard Sale are straightforward, but a few of the chains were short-circuited due to lack of time, so a few things are very senseless. The best advice is to make sure you have looked at and interacted with everything, and used everything on everything. If you follow that advice, you should have no problems completing the short "story". Here are a few more specific hints:
Don't forget to pick up the briefcase on the sidewalk, and remember the hobo.

I might post a walkthrough later if people ask.

There is a bug in the release version of the game - if you leave the first screen without picking up the case, the case will vanish for the rest of the game; and you need it at the end. When the game starts, be sure to right click on it to pick it up - it will be at Moe's feet. Also, don't forget, left mouse to examine, right mouse to use stuff.

Here is a walkthrough of the game, universal hint system style:

This dog is in my way.

Give him something to chase so he is not in your way.

The item you give him can move on it's own.

It's a living creature.

But when you first get it, it is too tired to run.

Give it something to make it more energetic (highlight next hint for full solution)

Get squirrel from the hole in the tree, use the soda on the squirrel, use the hyper squirrel on the dog.

How do I get the squirrel?

You need to lure him out.

What do squirrels like to eat?

The item you need should be obvious when you find it, but it can't just be picked up somewhere.

You have to get into the car first.

The hobo has what you need.

Trade what you get in the car to the hobo, and then use that to get the squirrel.

How do I get into the car?

You'll have to break in.

But you don't want to be destructive.

How would you break in if it was your own car?

The tool you need is actually a part of another item.

Use the suit on the car door.

How do I get into the shed?

You will have what you need later in the game.

It will be obvious when you can.

I guess you just want to cheat through the whole game?

Cheater.

Mow the lawn with the lawnmower to find the key. Use the key on the shed door to unlock it.

How do I get the lawnmower to work

It needs gas.

The car has gas.

Maybe it can be siphoned?

Need a container to hold the gas, and something to syphon it with.

Too actually siphon the gas, you need to use the two items together.

So combine them before using the combined item on the gas tank of the car.

Use the gas on the lawnmower, then use the mower to mow the lawn.

What is a good container for the gas puzzle?

The soda doesn't work as a container.

There is only one other item that really makes sense, and it is an easy item to find.

It's the lawn gnome watering can.

I still can't get gas.

Pick up the lawn gnome

Pick up the hose

Use the hose on the lawn gnome

Use the gnome/hose on the gas tank.

What's with the hobo?

He trades random things for random things.

When stuck, trying to trade any leftover items to the hobo may work.

Highlight next hint for the list of items you trade.

Trade the smelly sock and the ladder.

How do I ring the doorbell without bad things happening?

You need to get in the shed first.

If you've been in the shed and cleaned it out, you should be able to fix the problem.

It's a problem with the floor, not a problem with the doorbell.

Use the boards, nails, and then hammer on the trapdoor to cover it up.

I don't have any peppermint!

You don't need peppermint, that's just Henry's lame mannerism.

Just try to sell him the breifcase (use breifcase on henry.

If you don't have a breifcase, you didn't read the topic of this post and you have to start the game over again.

What's Henry's problem with me?

He will only buy from a proper businessman.

He tells you the two things that you need to be in order to be considered proper.

Greasy hair, and a suit.

The suit should be obvious - you already have it.

The grease is a bit of a stretch

You will find the grease you need if you have traded with the hobo twice.

Use what he gives you on your hair to handle the grease.

Still don't get it?

Trade ladder to hobo to get pizza, use pizza on moe to grease his hair.

Sell breifcase to henry and win the game.