Hari's Corner

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An alien shooter game - in Python and pygame

Filed under: My software by Hari
Posted on Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 11:32 IST (last updated: Sat, Aug 8, 2009 @ 13:32 IST)

I'm currently creating a classical arcade alien shooter game in python and pygame (just as a learning exercise). It's a lot of fun (and extremely easy!) to use pygame; I was able to write the basis of this game in a few hours and this includes the time taken for creating original graphics and original sound effects as well.

Here's a reduced screenshot:
Alien shooter game

And a video demo of the game in action:

The game itself is pretty easy to understand and play: shoot the alien spaceships that travel across the skies and the invaders that jump off them; don't allow more than 5 invaders to land! The game ends when you choose to quit or when 6 invaders manage touch the ground successfully.

I'll upload it on the software section after a few small enhancements like progressively adjusting the difficulty level to enhance gameplay. 8-)

4 comment(s)

  1. Nice, are you planing on getting into plasmoid development with Python in the future?

    Comment by Dion Moult (visitor) on Sat, Aug 8, 2009 @ 12:07 IST #
  2. Thanks Dion. Well, not really actually. As a hobbyist, I usually just write programs for my own amusement and release them under GPL in case somebody finds them useful.

    I might develop something like that when the fancy catches me, but since I'm no longer a KDE user, I'm not sure about KDE plasmoids in particular. I might create small utilites or tools from time to time when I feel the need.

    As for GUI programs I generally prefer to use Qt or GTK and don't like to touch the KDE or Gnome libraries. The underlying libraries have lesser dependencies and are almost as functional as the higher level wrappers of KDE and Gnome.

    Comment by Hari (blog owner) on Sat, Aug 8, 2009 @ 12:33 IST #
  3. It works great on Ubuntu 9.10 alpha (Karmic Koala). I've got some issues on my "dist-upgraded" 8.04. I'll install a "clean" copy in a VM and see if it works there. Its a great start. I like the sounds.

    Comment by MrCorey (visitor) on Sat, Aug 8, 2009 @ 23:19 IST #
  4. Thanks, MrCorey. I'll send you the updated version later. I've changed the sounds and added the scorecard also at the end...

    Comment by Hari (blog owner) on Sun, Aug 9, 2009 @ 09:30 IST #

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