Game Progress

We have been working on our rice rocks game. We have been looking to add even more features such as the overheat bar and a life meter. We also need to add fun scoring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIN50UMRehY

Inspiration

Ideas for Making Games Great

• Create an interesting user interface that still remains functional
• Integrate a hint system so player doesn't get frustrated
• Diversify the gameplay to keep the player interested.
• Avoid repetitive tedious tasks. 
• Integrate High score memory to keep the player playing. 
• Have "Fun" scores that aren't just intervals of 1
• Interesting Color palette
• Interesting and Satisfying sounds
• Give the user gratification or progression for playing.

Pygame Particle Physics

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20086067/fluid-like-characteristics-with-pygame

I came across this thread on stackoverflow regarding the use of fluid like particle physics. This could be integrated well into explosions and adding gravity. These particle physics would help take the game to the next level and increase the production value.

Integrating Pygame Physics Engine

Link to Tutorial

This tutorial details the in depth physics usage in pygame. This would be a fantastic integration into rice rocks that would take the game to the next level.

Model of collision physics in pygame

Pygame physics engine in action with collisions

Rice Rocks Physics

Gif of Physics

The physics in the working version of rice rocks need to be updated to remove the bouncing aspect. The rocks and ship bounce throughout their movement. This movement makes the game close to unplayable and is essential to creating a polished game.

Finding Clip Art and Assets for Rice Rocks

In our groups version of rice rocks we are now including transparent clip art png form art. We have been searching google by file type for art we can include and that will be aesthetically pleasing.

Rice Rocks in Github

I found a rice rocks repository on Github. This includes comments and revisions on the repository that are helpful for making a highly polished code. This also includes all the resources such as photos and animations. There are also forks off of the repo that have modified version to analyze.

Codeskulpter Online IDE

I discovered the Codeskulptor has an online IDE where I can play around with the code. I can even run simplegui in the window.

Porting Codeskulter to Pygame

In the necessary process of porting Codeskulpters code for the rice rocks game to pygame, I had to do much research on what functions to change.

On the codeskulpters page, there is a convenient guide on how to change the code.

http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/codeskulptor-demos/CS_to_PyGame.html

This was extremely helpful when attempting to change the code.

Using the Game Clock for Animations

In pygame, the animations such as a radar can be based off of the game clock. When initialized the clock can be assigned a name and used to trigger various in-game events.

Initializing and adding a clock

Side scroller

Jackson, Dylon, and I have created a premise for a game. It will be a sidescrolling action game with rpg elements. The game will utilize custom sprites and design.

Pygame Joystick Function

I am curious in using the logitech joysticks the school has and trying to make them work with the Pygame joystick module. This would allow a new way to control some of the games that we are testing in class and open the door of new styles of games.

A usage of the joystick function in python

Pygame and Mouse functions

When using pygame, I discovered the ability of controlling the mouse visibility

The command to enable the visibility of the mouse

This feature allows the hiding of the mouse in games such as first person shooters and keyboard based games.

Audio and Pygame

When viewing the pygame documentation, I discovered the pygame audio mixer. The mixer unlocks a world of potential in audio.

Command to initialize the Audio mixer function.

The Audio module allows the use of multiple audio channels for individual control. This can be used in situations such as having many different sound effects and background music.

Utilizing channels in pygame

Pygame and Mac

Unfortunately at this point, pygame does not want to work on my Mac. While it is installed on my home desktop, the requirements of xquarts and many other modules did not want to cooperate on my computer. This is leading to me writing many of the bits of code on google docs and testing at home.

Using Pydealer

The pydealer module is designed to streamline the implementation of cards and dealing in python programs. The module has several unique functions included a deck, deal, and shuffle action. The program allows you to set unique integer values to every card that makes it usable for blackjack.