Square's Nightmare

• 

  Main Menu

• 

  Level 1

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  Level 3

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  Level 4

• 

  Winning :D

Inspiration

As this is our first time trying pygames we wanted to build something that felt very nostalgic, but also had a fun and competitive side to it. It took a bit of trial and error to find a gameplay loop that made you want to keep trying until you succeeded.

What it does

Controls (Game will auto move, but you control the direction):

• [Up Arrow or W] Up
• [Left Arrow or A] Left
• [Right Arrow or D] Right
• [Down Arrow or S] Down

You control which direction Square can go and as he gains speed you'll have to time your movements more carefully.

How we built it

• This was built using Python and pygames mostly.
• We used Pillow to take the pixel value from the level images and generate levels based on the color value of a pixel. This allowed us to quickly create levels and make changes as necessary while we were building the project. We also utilize this technique to create the start point & checkpoint locations.
• In order to keep the player in bounds we setup collision detection rectangles on the rgba(0,0,0,255) pixel value.
• Alpha value pixels render a floor texture.
• We ended up having to use multiple surfaces to center the level and setup the top menu.
• Key presses were used for direction control and main menu buttons.

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest challenges were getting the level generation to work and changing the level after the player successfully completed one.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Learning Pygames
• Building a game with Python & Pygames!
• Going through the game development process :D
• Finding ways to make the gameplay loop both competitive and fun.
• Collaborating!!!

What we learned

Even if a game is simple you can accomplish a lot with even the simplest concept. Sometimes less is more! Perfecting the main concept allowed us to fix more bugs and push the overall experience further with audio / effects. If we had chosen to overcomplicate it with coins and traps we would've bloated the project and ran the risk of ruining our gameplay loop.

What's next for Square's Nightmare

We definitely want to take this further! We loved working on a game and we feel that more improvements to the movement experience and effects can add an even greater experience. Some of our future focuses include enhanced audio, particle effects, background effects, and UI effects.

Built With

• pygame
• python