The team from PyedPypers.org is back, and ready for some more pyweek game making craziness!
Once again, our perennial problem of not having dedicated artists is apparent on our team...

This competition, we are planning on going fully 3d, and probably networked, so if there are any 3d artists out there looking for a team, then we'd love to have you :)

Cheers all!

Appears our team captain (RB[0]) won't be able to contribute very much, so I'll be more or less leading things this time around. Since none of us have any experience with pyggel or 3D, we'll either be using retrogamelib, pyglet + squirtle, or straight pygame, depending on what theme's selected.

P.S. vote Sleeping Bears and receive a free picture of honey! ;)

Well, we're a bit unorganized at present, as 50% of the important team isn't here right now, but I made a mockup of what we were throwing around at midnight. Here 'tis.



Premise is, you're a penguin that was chasing a _____ into a graveyard, and the grim reaper, furious that you're on his lawn, sends hordes of zombies and ghosts after you. You have to "get off his lawn", while attacking the zombies and ghosts, solving puzzles, etc.

We're not 100% committed to this yet, as RB[0] was talking about doing a strategy game, but anyway, we'll see.

Alright, so, we've had a lot of plan changes so far, probably like 30 O.o
We had planned to use PYGGEL to do a 3d game, but owing to our lack of 3d artists we had to ditch that.
Then we were going to use retrogamelib, but we couldn't figure how to make the idea work really well, or make the gfx look nice for the idea we had.
Now, we are settled on a RTS that uses neither PYGGEL or retro.

We aren't going to be sharing any more of our idea, beyond that it is an pseudo RTS/TD merging that appears to be kinda unique, at the moment...

So, we just started working on this idea about 4 hours ago (judging from the SVN logs) - but we already have the menu and the game window.
Another interesting thing is I have found the joys of using GoogleCode's ticket system.
Condensing our entire game into 15 or so tickets make it seem so much simpler and more organized. Also, it definitely helps with team organizing, so I can't believe we didn't make use if it sooner O.o

All in all, I am feeling very hopeful for this week now, after a lot of bumps and potential bumps are by :)

Well, I had to work most of today, so I didn't get so much done (yet!) - but Keeyai and pymike have been fast at work.
Pymike created our animation thing, and some images for our worker robot units.
Keeyai created our pathfinding system.
I made our map grid and made the baddies use the pathfinding.

All in all, we now have an interesting tech demo.
The core functionality is there, but we gotta get those towers shooting and some resource gathering before I'll say it's a game (yes, there is a lot more planned than just that :P)

Cheers all!

Heya, work has been going great, so I thought I'd put a screenie up:


Well, I guess the may need some explaining:
the grey square with the red circle at the topleft is the enemy hive, where baddies come from,
the red circle on the bottom right is your hero, where the baddies are trying to get,
the black squares with the red border are build points for towers,
the tall red things with the sorta rounded top are built towers,
The actual images are workers out and about building towers for you,
the black squares with the hour glass sorta things are scrap mines, where your workers go to get more resources for you,
the white bordered, side-ways, pink hour glasses are boulders that just simply block movement,
the black diamonds are the baddies,
And the white grids all over are debug info that show which tiles are "filled" and can't be built on...

So, I'm really happy so far, I think the game will be playable in a basic state by the end of the day XD

Ok, so we are totally getting into a bad trend. Once again, we are swapping ideas completely (wiping the codebase even) on Wednesday O.o

On a good note, it appears we will be using PYGGEL, so, well, wish us luck :)

Alright, so last night we all decided to swap ideas because we didn't think we could get the current one done, etc.
Now, looking at it, I was like hey, we've worked our rears off, and it is already almost playable, so why completely restart? I like our other idea, but I doubt it would be so good by the time we are done, and it wouldn't have worked for anyone who didn't get the humor really well, so, today I decided we were gonna continue our original idea.

The biggest concern with it was that our artist didn't think 20x20 images was enough to make it look good. Then we realized that with the spacing of objects we have going on, they didn't have to be exactly correct. So now units can be up to 30x30, or for the flying ones it really doesn't matter...

So, we reverted the svn, and now have a tower image, and the towers shoot at baddies, and kill them.

We still need the resource meter, and this is basically playable, you can't win, and if you are smart you can't lose either, but it looks good :)

Here is a screenie for you (note the baddies trying to avoid the towers XD ):

The white grids and circles are debug stuff that won't be in the final version ;)

Well, we switch courses back to our original idea today, and man have we come far O.o

I spent a few hours trying to fix pathfinding when it wasn't broken.
Pymike made some good gfx and I made some cruddy ones.
I made a missile tower with cool missile attack
Lots of ui improvements.
Bots now use the pathfinding.
Made units fight when they touch.
Added a random map generator.
Pymike added explosions
Made a highlighter that shows where you can and cannot build towers.
Implemented resources and costs.
Made towers shoot


All in all, out most productive day yet, and the game is actually quite playable now. If we just made the enemies get stronger we'd be all set already :)
Too tired to make a new screenshot... tomorrow :)

So, we now have 2 "days" and 1 1/2 "nights" left to work on our game :)
So far today:
Found a good font and added it
Added tower upgrading
Added traps
Added warrior bots
Enemies now get stronger as the game progresses
Added Worker, Warrior and Trap upgrading
Added ui for building everything, menus and win/lose game.
nihilocrat added some sfx.


Basically, what we need now is to balance the heck outta this thing, and then just add more types of warriors, insects, towers and traps. ANd art, still need a ton of art!!!
Then maybe write a tutorial - we'll see though :)

Here is a screenie for you:



What you see here is like before, except, you get the new ui, the traps and a big warrior bot charging down the enemy :)
Cheers all :)

Still a long way to go (mainly content addition and balancing) but the game is at least playable now.

For those who are interested:
http://media.pyweek.org/dl/8/pyedpypers-2/rel1.zip

Note, we are having some... fun... with the balancing, so if anyone plays, could you please suggest how you would like the modes (easy/medium/hard) to be changed to make them more interesting :)

Cheers all!

Alrighty, so today has been our best day yet (and it had to be, I gotta work 4 of the last 7 hours tomorrow, so this outta be good :S )

So far here is the changelog:
Made units upgrade when a tech is researched
Balancing out the whazzoo, still way more needed, but at least you "can" win now...
Made ui show you the starting stats of units/towers when you go to build/upgrade them
Modified hives and insects spawning so it happens a little nicer now
Added money gain notifier
Added worms, wasps and beetles
New gfx (a lot is going to be replaced, yes :P )
sfx and music were added to most things
Added trapper and guard bots
Added cage and bomb traps
And innumerable bugfixes, balancing and general code maintenance.

Here is a new screenie:



And a new demo!

http://media.pyweek.org/dl/8/pyedpypers-2/rel2.zip

Tomorrow will be much like today, more art, more balancing, and then add the last of the towers, and we're gonna be done (oh yeah, probably add story and tut screen windows too... hmm...)

Well, it was as crazy day today.
SO, our final changelog:

Added missiles for your missile towers (wow, why'd that take so long?!?!)
Added laser, electro and bird food towers
Tweaked map generator
Added poison spray, mom with broom and lawn mower specials
Updated almost all images (really wish the missile towers had been fixed, but w/e)
Added fadeout for baddies
Made workers run back to base if they are hit by enemies
Made our hero (ugly, ugly image :S )
Tut screens and a story screen (bah, why so late, really hacky :S)


There is still a little art gone, and the sfx/music department is a little off (our musician was busy most of the week, and just didn't have the time to finish :S )
And, finally, the game balancing is still way off, almost impossible to win on easy (I haven't yet, without cheating).
Which is a question I wanted to ask everyone.
Basically the game is done, but to really enjoy it and make the levels right, it needs a little balancing.
I have been thinking about tinkering with that a little and then reuploading (the rules for uploading from last time were that bug-fixes in the 24 hour upload period were ok).
I didn't know if anyone thought this would be cheating or not - so I was thinking perhaps writing a script to do it, and people who want it can download/run the script to update, but that seems rather odd...
So, what is everyone's opinion - would slight balancing (stats only) and no gameplay changes, be alright, or frowned on?


Post Mortem:
Keeping it brief tonight, but here we go :)
I think this time we really did well, in that we got a good, feasible idea and stuck with it (yeah, we sorta changed idea for one night, but then came back to our original idea).
I didn't end the week sick and trying to forget about it like I usually do.
The team worked really well together, when we could. Pymike has a solo, so he was mostly absent on teh coding front. Nihilocrat was really busy, but he still got some sfx/music in and coded the system to use it. Keeyai had regular life come up, so he was gone after Wednesday.
But none the less, I think we did well. We have one of our most complete entries ever (if not the most), and I think we all learned a lot.
Personally I think I learned my limitations, both physically and mentally, so next time I will balance/pace myself better, how to better manage a team and my time, and I learned what kind of ideas to shoot for.

Cheers all, and happy playing :)

Alright, so, we had a couple bugs that we wanted to fix, and some balancing issues.
The rules state that in the 24 upload period you can fix bugs and such slight things, so I wanted to lay out exactly what I changed, so you can judge for yourselves whether it was legal or not, if not you can use the second to last download, otherwise, the new one is much better feeling and I really recommend it.

Here are the specific svn notes for each commit (there were 4, in a one hour period is all, changes are highlighted):

http://code.google.com/p/team-pp-pyweek8/source/diff?spec=svn220&r=220&format=side&path=/trunk/lib/objects.py&old_path=/trunk/lib/objects.py&old=211
In this commit I basically just modified the stats of the bugs and things, and made it so the hive won't generate more than 20 bugs at one time, I also fixed the mower special so it gives you scraps like it should.

http://code.google.com/p/team-pp-pyweek8/source/diff?spec=svn221&r=221&format=side&path=/trunk/lib/objects.py
In this one, I fixed the battle bots (and others) so they target the enemy hive correctly, there was a glitch where they kept wanting to target only enemies first, so it made it almost impossible to win.

http://code.google.com/p/team-pp-pyweek8/source/diff?spec=svn222&r=222&format=side&path=/trunk/lib/objects.py
This one I just fixed teh bird food tower so the birds fly off screen correctly

http://code.google.com/p/team-pp-pyweek8/source/diff?spec=svn223&r=223&format=side&path=/trunk/Readme.txt
Update readme :P


Now, as I understand it, it is alright to bug fix in the 24 hour upload period, but if you disagree, then DO NOT use this bugfix release to rate the entry, use the last release before that, but do play the new one for comments, as a lot of things that probably would come up are fixed, and it is much better anyways ;).
Upon re-reading the rules, it does say the 24 upload period is NOT for extra dev time, but it doesn't mention bug-fixing, which Richard said was alright before, and a lot of people do, I dunno, I hate the "everyone else is doing it, and I thought it was ok..." thing, so I dunno now, whatever :S
If you want any clarification on anything, just ask and I will be happy to answer :)

Cheers all, and liking the games I've played already XD

So, the game appears to be rather difficult at the start, but my brother finished it on both easy and hard, so I thought I would write up a little help guide, as well as a bit of a challenge.
It appears that once the game gets going, it gets rather easy (for a time), but then it starts getting hard again a lot later (I dunno, level 50+?)

So, first, how do you win?
Well, due to an interesting quirk (ie, we didn't balance them quite finely enough) the electro towers are probably the most powerful of the towers. I think the bird food towers are second, but they are about on par with upgraded missile towers, or just plain regular towers upgraded really high, I dunno, but I definitely recommend the BirdFood ones, because combined with the fast attack of the electro towers, the mega damage of the BF makes them a good one-two combo. Not to mention they are the most interesting towers :P

Now, my bro won the game with 5 or maybe 6 total towers in the end. But the thing you have to realize is that your warriors (except at the very beginning) are never going to be as strong as the insects, so don't even try and use them to actually fight (except for maybe the trappers, with their ranged attacks they can be quite useful sometimes...)

So starting out, build 3 towers around your hero, spaced about evenly so you can hit *almost* everywhere and there are not large holes (upgraded towers will fill them completely)
Now build 2 workers and upgrade your worker tech. You should have scraps close enough to your tower ring that your workers won't get slaughtered going for them, if not, put one of the starting towers out a bit further, it shouldn't really matter in the end-game.
Now, your towers will hold off the bugs for a few levels now, so just let them and your workers go. As soon as possible, upgrade your workers to level 3, this is the time when their speed maxes out, and is absolutely vital to having a steady supply of scraps later.
Now, once you get the money, upgrade your center tower to a missile tower, and the top and bottom ones to laser towers.
Then once again you have enough money, upgrade the laser towers to electro towers, and the missile tower either to a higher level missile tower, or to a bird food tower.
Now build a few more workers (probably until you have 5 or 6 at least) and just keep upgrading your workers for a while (probably level 5 or 6 is plenty), this increases the amount of scraps they can carry, and will be needed later. You may also want to upgrade your traps a couple times if you want to help your towers and warriors out later.

Once the enemies start getting too hard again, upgrade all your towers once more, and that should be fine for now.

Now, lay a few spike traps and bomb traps as close to the enemy base on the south side, and then build a new tower behind the defense line.
If you do it right, your workers should have enough speed, and your traps strong enough, that the tower will be built. If not, build an intermediate tower, between your ring and the new site under the enemy hive first, upgrading to electro.
Once your tower is built under the hive, upgrade it quickly to an electro tower, and then just keep upgrading it as much as you want, it's sole goal is to try and wipe out the bugs before they even get a few tiles from the hive.
If your electro tower is just getting too expensive to upgrade and you need more firepower to hold down the baddies, build a new tower (upgrading to Bird food) to the right of the enemy hive.
By this point nothing except the occasional worm should be getting by those two towers, if they are, keep upgrading them! (my bro ended up with an electro tower doing in excess of 1000 damage a shot up there O.o)

Now you have the win, so just upgrade your warriors a couple time, and then send only trappers. Trappers are best because they are the fastest, as well as they will throw nets on enemies, thus keeping them away longer, and perhaps helping your towers up there even more.

Just for kicks you can win once the hive's health is at about 7 or 8, by just sending the broom and the lawn-mower specials to finish them off.
The gas special is the best for you, as it only hurts the bugs, but it doesn't hurt the hive.
The broom hurts the hive and the bugs, but also takes out your bots.
The lawnmower takes out everything (though it does give you scraps as well as gold to rebuild) - so unless you are really in trouble I wouldn't recommend it ;)


There you go, that should be a winning strategy for everyone - though I am sure others have thought of better :P

Now, for the challenge. Due to the nature of the game (starting hard, easy for a long time after, and then getting really hard probably level 50+) it seems like one of the biggest challenges (besides just winning :P ) is how fast you can win, or how long you can go before winning.
So, everyone post your fewest kill wins (ie, try killing as few insects as possible, thus equaling winning faster ;) ),
and also your most kills victory. It can be quite fun to rack up a lot of kills, but can you still win once you get to that point?

Cheers all :) (and I'll post my fewest/most here later :P)

Well, was a fun pyweek, and I was really pleased that this time we really made our best entry yet.
I am a little disappointed that this game ranked at the bottom of our actually "finished" entries, though...

It seems a few people kept saying "just another TD" - as if that means it was not innovative. One of the main goals was to make an innovative RTS, TD was just added as sort of an after thought, modified from a different idea.
We wanted a game with resources, and two armies, but we had no where near the time to write the ai or map engine for a traditional RTS, so we went with the window-sized map, TD speed kind of game.
In the end, the balancing was a little off, but even so, we had resources, "workers", a nice ai, and everything else we planned, and I think it was quite an innovative approach to TD, with you attacking back, while still trying to defend, and with the specials and what not, but I guess some people just don't like TD (or RTS in general, whichever)

Comments:

I like it, even if it is another bug-swatting TD. You need to look up what a "tutorial" is!

See my above comment. If you simply play it for a sec, then yes, it can appear a simple bug-swatting TD - play it correctly to win and you end up with actually "tower offense" - using your towers offensively, and your warriors as well.

Wow, this game is incredible. Congratulations. I had a lot of fun playing this game and the idea works well. The graphics are very nice, and I appreciate having those sounds and music on this game. I had to give up after playing for a long time because I have other games to judge and, while I could defend myself with towers, upgrading warriors to become good enough to get to the nest was hard. A game like this is hard to balance, and I think you did a very nice work on that, but it could use some more balancing for a post-Pyweek version. Anyway, you kept me entertained for quite some time. Excellent work.

and others along these lines :P

Thanks :)
Yes, we will be making a post competition release, we've already been working on it since the competition ended, in fact :)

Controls felt a bit unnatural. I liked the retro music!

Felt unnatural how? It is simple mouse controls, pretty much like every single TD ever created...

Best tower defence game I've seen so far, though its still tower defence. I did hit a minor snag though - I was using 20 workers when I got my towers upto the enemies nest, at which point I was hitting them so fast that not even the burrowing once could get underground. As there was no way to remove some workers I was kinda stuck, until I found the lawnmower button, though I did then have to rebuild all my towers!

Thanks :)
Yes, you can't get rid of bots, that would definitely have been a good idea :S
Though I would recommend the broom special, as it kills your bots and not your towers ;)

Took rel3, since it is already sent past the deadline (though only a few minutes late). Yeah, balancing was a serious issue in this game. Maybe some caps or a "evolution tree" could be set so the player doesn't spend all his money in a single thing that's not going to be useful. The exponential nature of pricing in this gmae may take one off-guard.

The pyweek clock was messed up at the end, it was finished and uploaded on schedule ;)
But that is also completely besides the point, the 24 period afterwards is specifically *for* uploading, if you want the svn logs to prove it we can do ;)
As far as the gameplay part of your comment, yeah, I wanted the exponential because I figured balancing would be easier, and I didn't (go figure) want the bugs to start out-powering you easily, kinda messed that up though LOL
We'll definitely be working on the balancing seriously in the next release :)

Whew, what a battle -- and that was only on the easy setting! I have some doubts about the balancng. The enemy's level seems to increase far faster than you can upgrade your own units -- is that intentional?

Yes, and no.
On hard it seemed about balanced as I liked it, but the problem was that it is a simple system to win, once you know it none of the levels are very hard (my bro won with two towers and 4 or 5 workers, then just warriors...)
Your towers can easily (out)match the insects growth, the warriors, not so easily, if you only build them and not towers then perhaps, but that seems like a losing strat to me :S

Interesting game of two-way Tower Defense but it feels, irunno. I didn't really feel satisfied with the gameplay.

Hmm, well, that is understandable, if you know how to play it is a quick 5-10 minute win (unless you want to drag it out, which can be fun) - and if you don't you can't really win easily...

Pretty fun. Framerate was a little slow on my lappy, though.

Yeah, I can't believe I missed that. Was running like steadily at 60 fps no matter what we added on all our comps, so we all forgot to add psyco support O.o
Sorry :S

On the whole, I like most of our comments, lots of good suggestions, thanks :)
Cheers all, and well done to the winners :)

EDIT: oh yeah, and I am most pleased by one thing in particular, we continued our tradition of now DNW's/DQ's! XD