So challenge starts in few hours and except for flagging and reception themes I've just a faintly (almost none, actually) idea of what to do.

 I thought about making a SRPG, but hell, that'd take me sooo much time and I don't think I would be able to finish it in only one week, no matter how much coffe I drink (at least, coffee is here *¬*)

I guess I just need to take a break and the ideas will fall on my head.

...well, actually I wish that could happen D:

 
Anyway, I should prepare myself to enter god-mode, as I hardly will have too much time on this week, gotta plan everything out as soon as the theme is decided.

So it's feather theme, hm? I completly forgot about the time zone difference (here in Brazil it's -3 hours).

I had a idea with the other themes as I made some coffee (taking a break always help when you're stuck), it's about a girl who has to save her angel who whas made prisioner by her angel's sister, for she never spent too much time with her. You've got to collect stars in order to open your way through the sky and save the angel.

I'm still thinking about the puzzles, as soon as I finish thinking this over I'll start planning what to do. I guess I'll have to do a mapeditor, but I'm too sure I'll be too lazy for that and just do it in the painful and old way... coding :D

So I've got quite a few things out today. Although I didn't have much time to work on coding, actually, but at least I worked a bit more on the rhough concept and put it all on the paper (or the important bits of it).

The story is about a girl named Nozomi (which means "wish/hope"), who has a dream about a feather. She can't figure out why she keeps watching that dream every night, until an angel appears and asks for help. She then has to make her way through the sky (in her dreams) to save the angel, in a Alice-like world.

To pass one level you'll need to activate the star-switches in the right order. Every switch has a number and an math operation related to it, and the goal is to create a math expression that yields the main gate value, just like in the "24" game.

Of course Nozomi won't just go there and activate the switches as if nothing, she has to avoid the Lily Bugs, since her dreams run on Windows. As she can't kill the bugs (for now) you'll have to sneak through them to activate the switches.

So, it's basically it. I sort of finished the map module and started working on the sprite module. I also did some basic concept arts, but most likely I'll just end up using free image sprites, since sprite art tooks so damn much time.

Here's a concept for the angel girl. Most probably I'll use it for the main menu screen, if I have the time to color it until then D:


Now I'll make some coffee and back to work on the sprite module :D I shall post a screenshot tomorrow if everything goes fine (hopefully).

 So, after so much trouble writing a complex sprite/map module I just erased everything and started it over again lol Yep, I shall learn to keep things simple (KISS hasn't kissed me yet D:)

Other thing I was thinking over was to don't use the math expressions just to activate the main gate, but to activate platforms too. So you'd have some paths you could only walk if you activate it's number. That should lead to good puzzles, I guess.

Anyways, here's my todo list for today:
[x] Finish map module with all the logic for path activation and stuff
[x] Create a basic functional map editor
[x] Add enemies / pickups and create a collision detection system
[x] Think about some ways for Nozomi to kill the bugs (I keep telling her to use Ubuntu, but she is so stubborn)
[x] Search for some sprites for the characters (I just realized I have just the prototyping ones o.o)

I should kill myself now. I took an entire day and most of the things that should be done weren't .-.

But okay, I shall make up for it tomorrow (hopefully) :D 

...but it still not fun ;_;
 
I reworked in the map module and the game logic. Also, added the character sprite. Now I've got to add the bad guys (also called bugs). Something I was thinking last night would be using feathers to "debug" Nozomi's dream, while she make her way up to the sky, she will receive feathers which have different powers. She can also find rare feathers in chests over the levels.

Well, of the baddies I've though of making nests from where bugs are created as if there's not enough bugs on the level. Feathers would serve not just to kill bugs, but also to temporary close those nests (just like Gauntlet, hm, the difference being I don't have a large dungeon which is procedurally generated). I was thinking about the bugs having specified paths, but I guess I'll stick with the "walk randomly until you catch a glimpse of the debugger girl =D", then using some sort of A* to follow the girl.

For the characters sprites I'm using the Famitsu RPG Tsukuru chibi gen, which is free to use in RPG Maker, or in other softs given you place a link back to Famitsu. They're not that good looking and they're _really_ small (and resizing them makes them somewhat wierd, of course), but unless I have time to look for some better sprites (or just do my owns), I'll stick with these.

I'm also using LostGarden's Planet Cute graphics as tileset/pickups/etc. They're really good and they're CC <3 (anyways, I guess almost everyone knows Danc's tiles btw).

Todo list for today (dunno why I kept making so long todo lists):
[x] Add the bad guys
[ ] Implement sorta A* algorithm for the baddies
[x] Drink coffee
[x] Work out how to place some pickups/teleports/nests without having to rewrite the map module
[x] Make a main menu thingy
[x] Drink moar coffee (maybe with Coke :D) 
 
I was thinking about having some sort of intro animation as well. But... well, it wouldn't be an animation as those things take too long, but maybe some sort of manga-esque introduction, with some simple effects. I was working on a page last night and although I suck badly at drawing feathers I guess it came out really well.

Okay, I should stop trying to put alot of strange things in it and just finish a game m'rite?
Can haz fun playable game nao? :D

Main menu half-way done. I didn't even started with the A* algorithm yet, I guess I'll implement it if I have time, but I'll focus on the important things first (even though the bad guys look _really_ random, they're currently using the "just walk straight and if you feel like it or if the path is obstructed change directions" sorta algorith xD) 

Game over screen is done too. I'll post a screen tomorrow. Shall test on Ubuntu and Windows 7 too (I don't have a MacOS, so...), and work on getting some sound effects and animated stuffs :D

Now it looks like a game. A resume of things I did today:

• Main menu screen
• Implemented the feather attack system
• Tweaked a bit the sprite/collision system (still there's a wierd bug with collisions between feathers and bugs, but I'll look at this later)
• Added some score points and time limit for levels
• Worked on some simple graphics
• Implemented a simple SFont module for numbers

That's about it. Now I'll finally have some lunch and maybe go work in the game again (I'm not sure if I'll have free time in the afternoon yet). For now I plan to finish the menu thingyes (Options/help/credits/etc), add sorta stats for cleared levels (like sonic ones :D) add some sounds and music and work on animations for bug deaths and such.

I want to put some coins in the level too, you collect stars and can gain lifes :D

Btw, this is how the game (and my desktop) is looking rite nao

( click here for a bigger version =D )

Some menus, simple dissolve transitions, ambience music and sound effects. Yep, I'm almost there (although there's still too much to do, like creating bunchs of levels for example XD I really should create some quickly =D)
 
Well, I guess it was time to release something already. Although code is _really_ ugly and I don't think many peoples would like to take a look there (there's almost no comments, and usually I'm a comment freak), but well, it's sort of playable right now (though you can't clear levels yet xD)

Anyways, controls and gameplay instructions are on README.txt file. Make sure if you have xdrlib as well, I'm using it to package the map files (I'm lazy to write a xml parser, you know), it can be downloaded from python's SVN if you don't have it, but it's bundled with Python so it shouldn't be a issue (I guess).

Other than this, I hope you can enjoy the game (there's not much of it yet, I know) :D

I tested it only on Windows XP yet, but it should run on other OS as well (hopefully), anyways if you have some bug please report (all the more if it's a Mac one, as I don't have one D:)

Seriously, I've made almost no progress yesterday since job took all my time... well, at least the time I planned to spent on this. I'll probably have a meeting today, so... yeah, I've gotta transform a day in a week nao xD

Anyways, I still could get a few things done yesterday:

• High-scores screen (yeah! old game style rewards ftw :D)
• Level clear screen which looks sorta like sonic ones. It was fun to do that :D
• Reworked on menus and interface, but still need to add the anime-ish graphics.
• Fixed bug with .ogg files. Somewhat my converter generated a ogg file that played whereverelse but in my game O.O

I'll make the intro/ending story only if I have time to, they're not priority right now (even though I wrote the story already, it's long tho), but I want to add the angel girl to the menu. She looks so cute :3 Also, I changed the interface so it looks cuter now (for some reason I still don't know I've made sorta horror-ish graphics for a cute-ish game /yep, I should stop working while sleeping xD)

For some strange reason, the converter I was using generated ogg files that played wherever but in my game. I still don't know what was going on there, it was supposed to generate proper OGG vorbis files (I tried encoding with flac to see if it was just a wrong encoding, but pygame doesn't play flac files, so...). Anyways, I've got another encoder that does the job, so I'll be using ogg files nao :D

Here's a screenshot of the hi-scores screen (because most probably you won't be reading my whinings anyways xD)
 


Things I plan to do today:

• Options screen, so you can change display/difficulty/sound vol/etc
• Work on some animations for deaths and such
• Work on some special effects jus' 'coz game should look good :D
• Create moar levels (at least 7 or so)
• Make a tutorial level... or maybe not, this won't be a priority too.  

Now I have a todo list to complete, let's get to wo~rk ✩

I shall post a new beta demo today if everything goes smoothly...

 hopefully it will...

—it will, right?

Today I worked on getting this playable and polished... although I didn't much really. Most of time I just spent doing nothing xD. Anyways, this is looking like a game nao.

I decided to take the options screen off, because... really, who cares about an options screen. Okay, I do care, but that'd consume a time I don't currently have, so I will spend tomorrow doing some more levels and trying to put the introduction/ending togheter.

I colored Hikari's image too. She should look cute, but somewhat I screwed her drawing a little, so it's not that cute. And I still think her eyes look real weirdo, but that's it D:

This is how main menu is looking rite nao, with Hikki's picture in it :3
 


Btw, I did one more level, so second beta released :D
I really don't want to do it now, but... *sigh*

Edit
-----
Uploading it again because I ended up uploading the debug version xD

Just as the title says, I'm off to create some new levels. Right now there's 3 levels in the game, which is _really_ too little (considering level_0 should be a tutorial level, and I still didn't the tutorial part lol).

Anyways, I've got the introduction togheter, will work in the ending now. Also, I need to work on the collision bug, it's wierd xD

Something I was thinking over was if I should reduce the number of music files or reduce the quality of them. Right now I have a ogg file for each level, plus the game over/main menu/introduction/ending/stage clear ones. As I plan to have 10 levels (9 + tutorial) the final package would be _real_ huge.

Seven more levels to go, an ending that's strictly necessary or the introduction doesn't makes any sense at all (no, the intro isn't what it seems to be). Anyways, I'll have some lunch now because my hand is hurting really badly.

Geez, I must buy a tablet already, drawing with mouse is sick (and it's really killing my hands .-.)

Uploading sorta finished game with what I have now, but I'll see if I can really finish it until the contest ends, otherwise this will be the finished version :D

And yep, my code is _really_ ugly, and I don't think I'll have time to refactore it .-.

There's just three levels right now and I just can't get my head to work on the other 7.

Now I'll just get some rest and fix something to eat .-.

Next time I'll be sure to get an addictive game in a week. Shall start looking/making libs for this as soon as I have time :D Also, I'll go for procedural generation next time, or maybe a team.

Content generation by me once again just won't do ;_;

Also, I didn't test in ubuntu nor other OSs but Windows XP, so I'm not sure if it'll run. Hopefully it will.

I didn't packed everything in a .exe too -.-

So, PyWeek is over and so am I... really I'm dead after soo much. But it was quite fun participating so I'll be looking forward to the next compo, and this time I'll make sure to have my libs and planning done so my code won't look like a complete mess of locals and globals flying everywhere and almost no classes whatsoever.

Anyways, things went quite the other way around in this week. At first I had no idea at all for the feather theme, but then I just thought of merging all themes into one big game, so it should be easier. Well, somehow I guess it was. Doing a platform was quite fun, but I completly skipped the planning part and midway through the game I had was completly different from what I had in mind.

The original plan was really a math-ish puzzle game, where you would have to toggle switches to activate paths and portals, but I planned maps a lot larger than the ones I ended up making. Then I remembered pygame alone is not the best to make update-the-entire-screen-every-frame games and dropped the idea. Then I just focused on getting some functional stuff done and started writing a lot of codes at random.

The results, although I did made it to the deadline, weren't that great. As you can see by looking at the code (please don't do that, most of things there are sorta shameful .-. although there are something useful I wrote on the last days of the compo, like the novel manager thingy) everything is a mess and most of things I wanted to do I couldn't just because I spent a lot of time doing things that I needn't either because I could just pick up some lib or go without it. The complex map module I wrote at first was one of those all-not-needed things. I really didn't need something with lots of frames where player would have the ability to jump and such.

After all I had a lot of trouble editing code and some bugs resulted from this. Like sometimes if you press escape and select don't exit the game, the game will keep asking if you want to exit what is sorta annoying. There's also a bug in collision system where feathers will just pass right through bugs but won't kill them, but this should be something with the mask module, I didn't had really much time to work around this, but some bounding box collision should work perfectly here.

In short, there's a list of things that didn't work to me in this compo:

• Did no planning whatsoever (my todo lists couldn't be taken as a planning)
• Spent precious time working on the wrong things.
• Made a mess of locals and globals on the code, which leds to bugs and difficult to edit the code.
• Spent precious time doing nothing but looking at the console screen waiting for some brilliant idea to pop up out of nothing.

Things that I learned during this compo:

• How to use bitmasks and pixel-perfect collisions in pygame
• I should make plannings before go writing things at random
• I should use OOP to get things more organizated

So, I'm ready for next PyWeek, with a bit more of knowledge on how to make a game. And hopefully next time I'll have a fun game that won't have a completly messed source code.
Btw, I guess I'll keep working on this game, maybe I can get something interesting out =D