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TIGSource ForumsCommunityJams & EventsCompetitionsOld CompetitionsAssemblee: Part 2The Lonely Tower [FINISHED]
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Tempel
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« on: January 01, 2010, 04:09:30 PM »

Dear tigforums,



I present for you my first ever completed game, something called The Lonely Tower.  In it, two people play a video game (named, eponymously enough, The Lonely Tower).  The game is simple, but they are not.

So yes, it's a pretty pretentious artistic game without a lot of really good gameplay and with a little too much metatext (I'm more a writer than a developer), but I still hope you all find it interesting.

It was made possible primarily through two sets of assets: the insanely complete LOFI Fantasy tiles of oryx that have been so popular amongst uncreative hacks like myself, and the excellent portraits of Arachne.  Many thanks to both of you for inspiring this work and subsequently providing its assets, all in one deft motion.  Also important was a delightful font by Zaratustra.

As stated, this is the first game I've ever completed.  I know it has many flaws, but please, I would love some feedback.

2010-01-10:
A, for better or worse, final version has been posted up.  Everybody enjoy!

Note that that URL will hopefully change soon, as my usually host is broken at the moment, but will likely come back soon.

2010-01-01:
The current version is mostly feature-complete, but not yet content-complete; there's just enough content to give you an idea of where I'm going with it (the rest needs to be written before our deadline).

Thanks to saluk, this holds everything you need to run it in Windows without any external dependencies.  It also contains everything needed to run it anywhere python and pygame are installed.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2010, 09:13:19 PM by Tempel » Logged
shrimp
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« Reply #1 on: January 01, 2010, 04:11:04 PM »

How about a screenshot to tide us over while the helpful Python people do there stuff? Smiley
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Tempel
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« Reply #2 on: January 01, 2010, 04:26:39 PM »

Psh, because that would be clever and make sense.

Got one now, but it makes me realize how hard it is to capture a conversation in a single image.  The whole game isn't that boring!  I hope.
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« Reply #3 on: January 01, 2010, 04:41:22 PM »

To make executables for windows Folks - use py2exe http://www.py2exe.org

There is a nice example setup.py script for pygame apps at http://www.pygame.org/wiki/Pygame2exe
you can use that and only modify the metadata type stuff

You'll need to copy the assets over to the new dist/ folder

There is a problem with using py2exe and the font module. Copying SDL.dll, SDL_ttf.dll and libfreetype-6.dll from the pygame directory should fix that

I went through and did all the above and was going to package it for you, but it gives me a runtime error after that, so you may need to do something else to get it running.
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Tempel
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« Reply #4 on: January 01, 2010, 05:20:49 PM »

Very helpful Mocker, but I'm stymied by not having access to a Windows computer on which I can install things (and I understand that py2exe doesn't work in Wine).  I also found PyInstaller that might one day be able to cross-compile, "but it is not among [their] priorities".

Still, thank you very much for trying.  If you manage to get it working, that would be amazing, but I wouldn't ask you to fret over it.  If it comes to it, my game will simply become exclusive to the has-python-installed-anyways crowd, and exclusivity makes things cool.
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« Reply #5 on: January 01, 2010, 05:27:06 PM »

Well, you could always mail it to someone with a Windows computer and let them compile it for you.
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saluk
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« Reply #6 on: January 02, 2010, 01:23:51 PM »

Here's an exe: http://pywright.dawnsoft.org/lonelytower.zip

Some notes:

* you didn't specify a font, and the exe version was crashing on Font(None), so I used the default freesansbold.ttf. You might want to change this to some other font, it doesn't look quite right. Replace the file in lonelytower/code, and then change the pygame.font.Font line in people to point to the new font
* The method I use separates the code from the exe so it's easy to update. Just put your code updates in the code directory, and you can release new versions of the exe.
* This is ripped from my other projects, so there are likely a buttload of dependancies in the library.zip that you don't need, making it probable a few megabytes more than it needs to be. If you want to look through the library.zip and delete some things to trim it down, you can. Likely candidates you aren't using include opengl and numpy.
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Tempel
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« Reply #7 on: January 02, 2010, 03:39:37 PM »

Saluk, I am in awe.  That is a wonderful thing you've assembled there.  I've updated my code to work better and the Readme to give you credit.  Regarding font, I just had to decrease the point size to make it fit in the borders, but I think I'll take this opportunity to scour Part 1 for some better ones (that'll be more in the spirit of this competition).  I haven't yet cut the extraneous modules from library.zip, but I will for the next release.

But again, this wrapper you've created is so mind-bogglingly useful.  After this competition, I might not need it for a while, but would you object to my reusing it in the future?
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saluk
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« Reply #8 on: January 02, 2010, 06:20:08 PM »

Thanks, it really wasn't much trouble since I have used basically the same set-up for all of my python programming for some time now. It didn't take long to get tired of compiling an exe every single time I want to show a change - one of the reasons to use python is to avoid compiling Smiley Feel free to use it as much as you like. Of course, minor downside is your code is a tiny bit more exposed than it would be otherwise.

Oh and I love your game concept by the way. So very meta.
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Tempel
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« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2010, 09:16:14 PM »

Something that you might call a final version is up!  Please enjoy and give lots of feedback.

I really hope to be able to expand on and polish this a lot, as the themes for which I was aiming aren't as clear as I had hoped (and interactivity is almost nonexistent).  But this version is my competition entry, and classes start tomorrow, so please enjoy this one for a while.
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« Reply #10 on: January 10, 2010, 10:45:07 PM »

I like this. Spoilery comments below. I really hope you develop this further.  Smiley

The "three ways" room is interesting in how you use the real player's action in the subgame to impose a character trait on the player character in the metagame. There's a lot of depth to explore here, especially when the player character might have to start rationalizing more complex choices to the girl.

Role playing, I was able to see all of the conversations play out, but when I tried rushing through the game, they started bleeding into the next rooms. You might want to look into dynamically padding out the game map (like making the first hallway longer if the player is in a hurry).

I was disappointed that I still had control over the game when the main character left. Broke continuity, since he was the only one playing, and the girl was clearly uninterested at that moment. On a similar note, I would love to see a scene where he gives the girl the controller (perhaps revoking the player's control depending on how you want to define the player's role).

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Tempel
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« Reply #11 on: January 11, 2010, 12:33:19 PM »

Thanks Noyb!  Some responses:

Role playing, I was able to see all of the conversations play out, but when I tried rushing through the game, they started bleeding into the next rooms. You might want to look into dynamically padding out the game map (like making the first hallway longer if the player is in a hurry).
That was a big problem that I struggled to work out.  In the end, I just had to hope that people would stop to look around and read without rushing through because any time I tried to add extra rooms, I just thought of more things for them to say.  Dynamic padding is interesting, but something doesn't feel right about that in this context; I think I want the game to remain a constant while the people react to it.  I was thinking that dynamically dropping (or shortening) conversations could be good, but haven't thought how to implement that yet.

I was disappointed that I still had control over the game when the main character left. Broke continuity, since he was the only one playing, and the girl was clearly uninterested at that moment. On a similar note, I would love to see a scene where he gives the girl the controller (perhaps revoking the player's control depending on how you want to define the player's role).
I thought that the time between when boy leaves and when the game ends was small enough to be unimportant, but I guess I'm wrong.  I had considered having him hand off the controller to girl when he goes to attend to grandma, but I wasn't sure how I would continue the story from there while sticking to the themes I wanted and making sense.  If I ever get around to fleshing out further, that'll be one of the first things to do.
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« Reply #12 on: January 11, 2010, 07:34:37 PM »

I really liked this, you should continue it further and make it go a bit longer and do some of the suggested things like handing the girl the controller or something. Actually was more entertained by this than most entries!
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« Reply #13 on: January 11, 2010, 10:51:16 PM »

Heh.  Nice game.  Reminds me of playing new games with friends back in the old NES days.  Sitting down with a new game and thinking "good or not, this is the only new game we have available so, dammit, we're going to play it!"

Nice little story too.  Not too complex, but enough to compliment the interactive part.
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« Reply #14 on: January 12, 2010, 12:11:56 AM »

*clap clap*

Really amusing! Surprise ending! Smiley And i really enjoyed that you actually made an entry where the "game" was an excuse to tell the story, rather then the norm, where a "story" is shat out to justify the game.
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« Reply #15 on: January 12, 2010, 07:03:14 AM »

Is there only one ending to the game? Concerned
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« Reply #16 on: January 12, 2010, 08:37:09 AM »

Indeed, quite the amusing entry. It's an interesting way to tell a story. Could have used some audio though.
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Tempel
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« Reply #17 on: January 12, 2010, 10:05:20 AM »

Hooray, positive attention!  Thank you, everybody.

Is there only one ending to the game? Concerned
Sadly so.  Just like in real life, how you choose to play your video games will rarely influence the actions of your grandmother.

Indeed, quite the amusing entry. It's an interesting way to tell a story. Could have used some audio though.
It certainly could have, but I didn't see it as too useful for the game's purpose.  It was enough of a struggle for me to get it where it is now, so perusing, picking, and implementing audio all got cut.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2010, 10:10:29 AM by Tempel » Logged
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« Reply #18 on: February 01, 2010, 03:28:28 PM »

Liked: A very different experience from all the other entries. Interesting story and the dialog was quite good/believable.

Disliked: Would have liked more story branches and generally a bit more to do.

Conclusion: It's a very interesting concept which I would really like to see expanded upon after the competition. Any plans to expand this?
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Tempel
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« Reply #19 on: February 01, 2010, 03:46:16 PM »

Conclusion: It's a very interesting concept which I would really like to see expanded upon after the competition. Any plans to expand this?
In theory, but unlikely.  There's so much more I wanted to do with it, and I might some day.  For now, though, other projects (including education) take priority.

If anyone else wanted to write their own stories through it, I would be ecstatic.  All the source code is included with the download -- poorly documented, of course, but I'm never more than a forum post away -- so it doesn't take long to implement some maps and words.
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