Urg. Once again my least favourite theme wins. :-(

I did come up with an idea for this theme last week, based on doing balancing acts with piles of objects, but it would require more physics than I'm comfortable about pulling off in the time available. Besides, I didn't like it very much.

I have another idea now. It'll require some physics too, but I think I know how I can do it fairly easily. Basically it'll be a platformer where the whole level is wobbling. Not sure exactly how that'll interact with the gameplay, but hopefully some offbeat things will suggest themselves once I start playing with it.

I've also decided that I'm going to have to use OpenGL to get it to perform acceptably. This is the first time that I've used OpenGL in a PyWeek entry, but I'll be using it in a very simple way, so I don't think it will cause too much trouble for either me or my players. Fortunately I added OpenGL support to Albow in the last release, so I'll still be able to use all my GUI stuff along with it.

Progress so far: Basic game framework is in place, and I have some texture mapping code working (not a trivial feat when there are about a dozen parameters, and you have to remember to set all of them in order to get off the ground!).

Task for tomorrow: Write code to simulate transverse waves in a two-dimensional elastic medium.

Between arranging car repairs and doing the sort of work that earns money, I haven't had much time for it today. Made some progress, though.

Wave simulation is working. Also got the rendering working with vertex arrays, which gets most of the tricky OpenGL stuff out of the way.

I've uploaded a screenshot of my wobble test. It looks more impressive when it's moving.

Also decided on a working title: Wobleigh Towers.

Discovered an interesting effect when I set the stiffness parameter too high, resulting in an unstable simulation. A chain reaction started at the bottom of my jelly tower and worked its way upwards, eventually consuming it all.

Might be a useful thing to incorporate into the game somehow!

Not as much progress as I would have liked today. Was hoping to get a player character moving around, but only got as far as displaying a static image.

Did enhance the physics to allow for gaps in the jelly, so my walls wobble independently. Also tracked down a long-standing glitch in Albow that was causing slightly irregular frame rates.

Discovered that PyOpenGL 2.x as an enormous memory leak when it comes to vertex arrays. Switched to 3.0.1, seems to be all right now.

Got a character moving around on the jelly and climbing steps. No walking animation yet. Still not much idea about the gameplay, which isn't a good sign half way through the week.

Taken all day to get my character moving and jumping properly, climbing steps but not walls, and not getting stuck in jelly. Still no walking animation. Still not much idea what there will be to do.

Player now has a sonic screwdriver which can be used to soften jelly and eventually remove it altogether. There will also be another use for it at the end of the game, if I get that far.

The screenshot below shows an interesting bug that resulted in smeared jelly appearing from another part of the universe when using the sonic screwdriver.

After looking at my wobbling level for a while, my main menu screen looks like it's wobbling too!

Made a release. It's not really complete yet -- all the essential elements are there, but the tower only has a very minimal number of floors. It's playable as far as it goes, though, and it'll do if I don't get any further tomorrow.

I managed to get the planned 11 floors of the tower done. There isn't a huge amount to do in them, but nonetheless, completing the game turns out to be not completely trivial, so I'll have to be satisfied with that.

Didn't get time to add any music. I'll have to hunt down a collection of music in advance for next time.