This was quite a good start into a new PyWeek - far better than the last two or three ones where we struggled a bit to find a decent idea and then implement it. :)

About the game itself:
Nine Times was our second-least favourite and our idea for it was rather "meh". The original idea was a Jump & Run about an old cat who retells his life-story (or 9-life-story) to a younger kitten. Sadly, the older cat died on each of his adventures he is now telling the kitten and the task of the player would have been to find out how the cat died (on our list of deaths were: "Fall from a high place", "Electrocuted", "Drowned", "Clobbered by something heavy", "Car Accident", "Suffocation", "Chocolate Cake", "Fire/Explosion").
But of course - as always - our least of second-least favourite theme was selected and while brainstorming on the concept of the original idea, we came up with an even better idea. The boon of that new idea was that it coincidentally also was one of those multiple ideas for possible games we should program sometime/soon/within the next few weeks floating around in our heads (and in some cases on paper). During our second Pyggy we finally completed our very first PyWeek game "The Villainy of Cat Food Inc." with Nanji and Guy as stars. The outro music of that game (the one that plays when the credits are rolling in) sounded very "ninja-like" and we jokingly added an idea to our collection of "Nanji the Ninja" hopping from wall to wall and tree to tree in her quest for tunas.

Well, there we are. Our goal for this PyWeek is now to create a Jump & Run game starring Nanji as Ninja on her quest to collect the signets/medals of the nine Ninjat (Ninja+Cat) Clans and ... well either get lots of tunas or save the world. Whatever happens to be behind that giant vault door that can only be opened by using the nine Clan signets/medals - Nanji the Ninja of course hopes for the world's biggest tuna treasure, but if she has to save the world.. geez, so be it! :D

Status after the first day:

ServalKatze was able to create a basic Jump & Run framework with collision detection. She currently is working on implementing some of the Nanji character graphics I created today which should keep her busy for the rest of her day. (She just managed to break the Run part of Jump & Run, so we have a Jump & Jump for now)

Naturally (me working during the week and stuff) today was the most productive PyWeek day and I'm a bit (just a little bit) disappointed on how little I was able to complete today from the graphics side. I really do like the graphics I created and I put a lot of hours in them - just adding the shadows took me 1 and a half hour [before: http://www.zahmekoses.de/dump/PyWeek12/nanji_previous.png; now: http://www.zahmekoses.de/dump/PyWeek12/nanji_now.png]. But apart from the main character everything else is currently missing and I aimed to get some more done due to my limited time after today.

Nevertheless, below the promised animations (these can't compete with animated ponies, but I still like them) :D


Idling


Running


Walking


Throwing Shurikens


Jumping


Going Forward / Next Milestones:
Serval's List:
- implement all of Nanji's graphics and my (soon to come) simple tileset
- create a simple editor so we can start creating some levels or level-chunks for testing (and later for the game itself), which will be expanded as needed based on new tiles
- Level load logic
- Construct a basic main menu, level selection, whatever else is needed, etc.

My List:
- create a simple tileset (grass, dirt, stonewall) so we can create some basic levels for Nanji to ninja around in
- Enemy Ninja's (if I don't find enough time these probably will be recycled and colorcoded-for-your-convenience Nanji's)
- Some further Nanji-Animations
- Maybe transition-animations between sitting and walking etc.
- Menu-graphics

That's it for today - hopefully more graphic stuff tomorrow :D

Well, Serval is currently underway implementing some last minute changes and generally polishing the game here and there, but all in all our PyWeek entry is ready to be considered "final" [upload will follow shortly after this post].

Despite me hoping to write more than 2 Diary entries during this PyWeek, I failed at this miserably. Work was more stressful than I initially hoped which effectively kept me from writing Diary entries during the week (and also kept me from doing any graphics until Thursday evening). But while I'm not satisfied with the variance in our graphics, we still have enough for a neat looking PyWeek game.

Our independent expert - Zahmekoses (artist of zahmeKatzen) - recommends: If possible, try to run our game in Fullscreen (Pressing F12 ingame) to fully enjoy the provided graphics.

Our game is "complete" in terms of "we have a tutorial level", "all nine clans are implemented with nine different levels", "basic Jump & Run gameplay is implemented", "we have an outro".
Our levels do lack a bit of originality as the objects that we can use in our levels at this time are only gras and stone plattforms, but the potential to improve on this end is definitvely there and we already have some plans to improve this half of the game.

Thus, while this PyWeek is not even over yet, Serval and I already compiled a list of items that we want and will change during the upcoming Pyggy challenge (at the same time this list can be seen as a list of items we initially wanted to have in this game, but sadly were not able to implement in the time available to us :( ):

• Intro before tutorial level to explain the story so far
• each clan receives two levels - one outside and one inside the Dojo
• each clan receives a unique Boss that needs to be killed to obtain the clan signet
• Moving Platforms
• Locked Doors were the key first needs to be found within that level
• Walljumping
• Smoke-Bombs
• Caltrops
• Melee Attack (unsure if we really need this)
• More Animations (Getting Hit, Dying, Walljumping, Swimming?)
• More Tiles in General (Spikes, Water, Sand, ...)
• custom backgrounds and tilesets for each clan
• parallax scrolling/backgrounds (also each specific for every clan)
• various kinds of Ninjats (Katana-Ninjats, Shuriken-Ninjats, Yari-Ninjats, etc.) with different abilities and stats
• special abilities for clan ninjats depending on clan (More HP for Sei-Clan, Fireballs for Ka-Clan, etc.)
• Adding more Shinobi-Like gameplay and reducing the "Jump on your enemies until dead"-part
• More/Nicer Music (Currently only Level-Music is present; need to add Music for Intro, Level-Selection, Outro, ...)
• More in-game dialogue (and monologue) to provide background information on the individual clans and include various plot points driving the story forward (and foreshadowing the coming events more effectively)
• New & refined Sounds
• Bigger Levels (and better game performance with bigger levels)
• Achievement System? (Never tried one, would be interesting to create one)
• Less Bugs
• Less Glitches
• More Fun! :D

Nevertheless, I personally had quite a lot of fun during this PyWeek as I actually learned some new neat "MS-Paint Pixel Artist"-skills and tricks; and I think even Serval had some fun - as long as she stops thinking about how awful her current code looks like and that she needs to tidy it up during the next Pyggy, etc.

Thanks richard for the PyWeek and good luck to the other contestants!

And the file is uploaded along with our obligatory Title Screen Screenshot.

Some notes on the game itself (tips, hints & known bugs):

• You have 9 hearts and 9 lifes. If you lose all 9 hearts or fall down a pit you lose one life. If you complete a level your hearts are filled up again, even if you finished the level with only one heart left.
• It is possible to beat all levels (Serval - who did not create the levels - verified this). I don't have to mention this as most of the levels are quite easy and straightforward, but there are two or three levels that have a bit harder passages in it. Most notably the Mizu-Level which is quite Jump-precision-heavy. If you have problems here try to more fine-tune your jumps (the longer you press space, the higher you jump. Pressing space for a short time will produce jumps that are lower but sometimes also easier to control).
• We do have to apologize as it seems that in at least two levels the flow is not that obvious (i.e. you are standing on a high platform and are not seeing were to go now). In both cases a leap of faith to the right will ensure you will have solid ground under your paws again AND are on the right track. We will fix this in the Pyggy version (either by adjusting the camera to actually scroll down when you duck, or by adding some level tiles to point you in the right direction).
• In some cases you can land on the right hand side of the dojo and are subsequently not entering the building. Just go to the left side of the dojo and the automatic script for level completion will take over from you soon enough [The script is not broken, it is just that the "script-activation"-overlay does not cover the right side of the Dojo].
• If you jump on two or more enemy Ninjats crowded together it happens from time to time that you do take damage from it, while simoultaneously taking out all of the enemy Ninjats. As you have 9 hearts at your disposal and as these hearts are refilled if you go from one level to another this should not be a big problem and is just a minor annoyance ("Why am I taking damage? I killed ALL of those Ninjats and I'm still taking damage?!?").

Thanks and have fun! :)