Author Topic: my switch games (Read 51093 times)

scriptedfun · « **on:** January 05, 2007, 05:50 AM »

Hello everyone! I'm really sorry for uploading my submissions this late... I'm from the Philippines and the recent Taiwan quake has made accessing the internet very difficult in this part of the world

Fortunately (and surprisingly!), I found a PC with fast-enough internet for me to make the entries available to everyone. Here are the links to the zips ~~(I'll post this as a draft first while uploading the zips... the links will follow )~~:

Herder
Bounce
Flight

I have to admit that Flight is unfinished though, but you may want to take a look anyway

. Here are the instructions:

Herder:

Hold the key to change the orientation of the snake's rotation, and encircle the bubbles using the snake to make them disappear. In order to eliminate the floating bubbles, which is the objective of the game, you need to have the correct orientation and the snake's color should match the bubble's color - this will be better understood once the game is played, and I think it can be easily figured out

.

Bounce:

Press any key to change the position of the catcher, and make sure that none of the characters fall.

Flight:

Hold any key to flap the wings of the dragon, and avoid the bombs.

Right now, I'm having a bit of a problem making screenshots, so I'll try to post them within the next few days.

Thank you so much for this amazing contest, and good luck to everyone!

edited to attach picture

Deozaan · « **Reply #1 on:** January 05, 2007, 08:55 PM »

Hi Scriptedfun,

I just tried out all of your games. Each one has a very big problem: They don't respond to anything I do. My snake in herder just spins in circles while bubbles disappear. My catcher just stays in the middle above the spikes, and my dragon just flew off the top of the screen and never came back down.

I tried pushing buttons, I tried clicking the mouse. Nothing I did affected anything on the screen with one exception: On the menu for Bounce I was able to use the arrow keys and select Play Game or Exit but once I chose Play Game nothing happened.

Also, can I make a feature request? Don't make it go into fullscreen mode. It changes my resolution and messes up my desktop on my second monitor.

mouser · « **Reply #2 on:** January 05, 2007, 08:58 PM »

i played the circle game today and LOVED it.
very much a zen-like experience.

Deozaan · « **Reply #3 on:** January 05, 2007, 09:02 PM »

What circle game? Herder? With the snake made out of bubbles? They don't work for me. My snake just spins in circles.

mouser · « **Reply #4 on:** January 05, 2007, 09:08 PM »

herder yep.

i dont want to spoil the discovery for you , but spacebar is the control on herder.

Deozaan · « **Reply #5 on:** January 05, 2007, 09:11 PM »

That was the first button I tried. Just tried it again. Spacebar does nothing. The only key it responds to is Escape which exits the program.

mouser · « **Reply #6 on:** January 05, 2007, 09:16 PM »

i was just going to post i couldnt figure out how to herd the reds but i just figured it out..

mouser · « **Reply #7 on:** January 05, 2007, 09:16 PM »

deoozan maybe the full screen thing is throwing off your keyboard focus?

mouser · « **Reply #8 on:** January 05, 2007, 09:19 PM »

my high score: 800

Deozaan · « **Reply #9 on:** January 05, 2007, 09:21 PM »

My high score is 0.

I thought about it throwing off the keyboard focus, except that escape works, and the menu works on Bounce, and on Flight it seems like it thinks the keyboard is pressed the entire time because the instructions say to press the key to make the dragon fly. Well my dragon flies beyond the limits of the level without me touching anything.

mouser · « **Reply #10 on:** January 05, 2007, 09:34 PM »

strange, there must be a problem with the keyboard code for some keyboards. anyone else with this problem?

scriptedfun · « **Reply #11 on:** January 05, 2007, 10:14 PM »

Deozaan: Oh no!

and thank you so much for this very important feedback! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to test my code on other machines, and I think I made the mistake of making EVERY key a switch!

And thank you so much for telling me about the fullscreen issue - I actually agree with this

Unfortunately, I'm using a PC different from the one I code in, and I don't have my files with me - hopefully, I will be able to change the switch to spacebar only, and take out the fullscreen. Again, thank you so much for this important feedback - it could've cost me a lot

mouser: I'm glad that you liked the game! I'll be updating the game to remedy the problems the games currently have - I would just like to ask if it would be okay for me to enter the "fixed" versions instead? I promise that the only things that I will change are:

Make the spacebar the only switch key.
Make the game run in a window.

Nothing more. I hope that this issue wouldn't cause my game to be disqualified because of being unplayable

. Thank you so much!

The reason why I'm posting this request in this public forum is so that other people, in particular other contestants, can dispute this request of mine just in case it seems unreasonable - but I hope it isn't

Again, thank you so much!

mouser · « **Reply #12 on:** January 05, 2007, 10:19 PM »

the game was playable on my pc; feel free to update newer versions (that goes for all entrants), but i cant say whether they will be considered when judging the contest. if its just to fix bugs then probably we would use the fixed versions - but we wouldnt consider any added features past the deadline.

scriptedfun · « **Reply #13 on:** January 05, 2007, 10:22 PM »

Yes - no added features - just to fix bugs

In particular, the two issues mentioned. I'm hoping that the judges will use the fixed entries

Thank you so much!

scriptedfun · « **Reply #14 on:** January 06, 2007, 08:04 AM »

The previously mentioned issues have been resolved, and I've uploaded the new zips

. Please use the same links in the first post.

By the way, the zips contain Windows versions of the game. If you use a Mac or Linux machine, or if you're simply interested, you can grab a copy of the source code versions of the zips:

Herder
Bounce
Flight

To run the source code, you will need Python and Pygame. Please feel free to experiment with the code!

And finally, screenshots!

Herder:

Bounce:

Flight:

tinjaw · « **Reply #15 on:** January 06, 2007, 08:44 AM »

w00t! Another fellow Pythonista!!!!

scriptedfun · « **Reply #16 on:** January 06, 2007, 10:39 PM »

Yeah!

I haven't become familiar yet with the Python-related happenings here on DonationCoder.com, but I'm really willing to help out!

mouser · « **Reply #17 on:** January 06, 2007, 10:53 PM »

i just scored a 1900 - beat it suckers!

Screenshot - 1_6_2007 , 10_51_22 PM_ver001_thumb.png

ps. this game is too hard - we should get an extra couple rings on our chain each time we herd something.

Deozaan · « **Reply #18 on:** January 06, 2007, 11:38 PM »

Wow Herder is pretty fun, but yes difficult!

Bounce needs to have more variety. It's always spot 1, spot 2, then spot 3. Repeat. It was looking good to have some guys who didn't bounce as high as the others, but they also needed to be bouncing around at different intervals so it wasn't always just press the spacebar every three seconds.

Flight looks like the start of a fun game.

Somehow these games seem a lot higher quality than last time I played them. Dunno why.

scriptedfun · « **Reply #19 on:** January 07, 2007, 12:11 AM »

I'm really glad that you like the games

Deozaan: Yes, I agree that the game needs more variety. I think that it would actually work better as a two-button game, pressing left and right instead of space; with that, the game's difficulty would still remain reasonable even if more jumping characters were onscreen simultaneously. Another option which I think might have worked better is to still make the game one-switch, but the dragon should just have two positions. Again, with that, more sprites could be added to the screen, potentially making it more exciting. Yes, Flight is a start - unfortunately, I wasn't able to add to the December 22 version, but I hope to complete this eventually. The same goes for the other two - still lots of improvements to be done! As to why they seem to be more high quality...

perhaps it's because they actually work this time

Although I guarantee, upon my honor, that the only things that I have changed are the two issues mentioned above

Perhaps the games look good at your monitors' native resolution instead of 640x480/800x600?

mouser: Thanks for the suggestion!

I will incorporate this change when I update the game. Right now, only one ring is added for every bubble herded. Try to herd multiple bubbles at the same time for bigger points!

CodeTRUCKER · « **Reply #20 on:** January 07, 2007, 01:32 PM »

Mine is almost ready... just a few more bugs...

mouser · « **Reply #21 on:** January 07, 2007, 01:35 PM »

sorry if i wasn't clear but the deadline is closed for new stuff;
but if you have bugfixes feel free to submit them; i've already made my assessments and so has michelle hinn, but there are still a few accessibility judges that havent, and if you submit bugfixes they will may get a chance to try those fixed versions. but we are not accepting any other impovements.

Deozaan · « **Reply #22 on:** January 07, 2007, 01:56 PM »

As to why they seem to be more high quality... perhaps it's because they actually work this time Although I guarantee, upon my honor, that the only things that I have changed are the two issues mentioned above Perhaps the games look good at your monitors' native resolution instead of 640x480/800x600?
-scriptedfun (January 07, 2007, 12:11 AM)

The fact that they worked does make it seem better, but I think you're right about the resolution. The graphics seem a lost smoother, especially on Herder. And I don't think the music was working when my keyboard wasn't either. It's nice music.

With Bounce I think it would still work well as a switch game where the dragon has three positions. It would add to the challenge! I can't remember if it was the original version of Tetris that did this, but I'm sure I've played some kind of Tetris game where you could only rotate the block one way, so if you needed to change you had to press the button a few times and fast! It adds to the frantic nature of such a game.

Thanks again for these games!

mouser · « **Reply #23 on:** January 07, 2007, 02:02 PM »

to me, the bounce and flight things were just little tests - they didn't seem to be real full games to me and i didn't spend much time looking at them (no offense intended). but herder was a different story altogether, and really was a cool experience.

scriptedfun · « **Reply #24 on:** January 07, 2007, 08:52 PM »

Deozaan: Thanks for your suggestions regarding Bounce! I'll try to factor those in. This project actually began life as the two-button game I described earlier, and I will try to make that available as well. I'm glad you liked the games

.

mouser: I agree with you on this one. Flight is obviously a test, and Bounce, as I have said earlier, was actually designed as a two-button game, and right now both really feel unpolished. Herder, on the other hand, was designed 100% to work as a switch game, and I'm actually very happy with the way it turned out. I think that it's a lot of fun to play, and, with some more work and balancing (to make its difficulty more reasonable, etc.), I think that it has the potential to be there with Solitaire, Minesweeper, Pinball, etc. - the types of games that non-gamers (who I think make up the majority of computer people) would play in between waiting for e-mail to load, etc. I hope, with the help of everyone, for the games to reach that potential!

Thank you so much for all the feedback! Work will continue on these three games, and hopefully they can eventually turn into games that a lot of people will enjoy.

Thank you so much for this contest! It has been a great opportunity for me, and I'm sure that it has been a great opportunity for everyone who has joined this contest. Through this contest, a good number of new games came into being for everyone to enjoy

.