In the past couple of weeks I’ve implemented a web-based version the game, using Javascript and the HTML5 canvas element for the game itself, and a Django back-end server for storing high-scores in a centralized manner.

Here’s a screenshot:

And the game itself is available for playing here. Note that due to its use of the canvas element, it doesn’t support Internet Explorer. I tested it in Firefox, Safari and Chrome.

Some observations on the development of the game:

• It’s really the first time I’ve written a large amount of Javascript code. It was an interesting experience about which I have mixed feelings – so I think it deserves a separate post.
• The HTML5 canvas element is really nice and works just like any other canvas / graphical device context in a GUI framework. It has nice performance and an intuitive API.
• It’s also the first time I’ve actually done any serious AJAX. It turned out to be pretty straightforward on the client, with the generous help of jQuery. On the server side it’s even simpler.
• I was surprised how easy it is to craft a simple DB-backed server for storing the high-scores using Django. It was probably the most effortless part of the project – Django really does make server development in Python ridiculously simple.

I will play with it myself for a few more days and then release all its source code to the public domain. Naturally, the client-side code is accessible even now by viewing the source of the page in your browser.

P.S. There seems to be at least one other Javascript clone of the lines game online, but it doesn’t use canvas and doesn’t have a global high-scores table.

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Therefore, I’ve rewritten the tetris game with PyQt. PyQtris is the name of the new game (am I original or what?). It’s an exact clone appearance-wise, and works with the same high-scores file, so it can be just plugged in for wxPytris.

Here’s the mandatory screenshot:

The porting process was easy, although a bit boring. Most of the GUI code maps 1-to-1 between wxPython and PyQt, and there are only some quirks to be handled differently. The built-in double-buffering of widgets in Qt4 helps make it a cleaner code in the drawing part.

Get the source code here. You can run it with Python 2.6 and the latest PyQt. If you’re on Windows, you can also download this 6MB executable that has no dependencies whatsoever (created with PyInstaller).

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I’ve got two reasons (excuses?) for this. The first is the new management position, which has immediate negative effects:

• I have fewer technical challenges at work to think about, and I’m not quite in the condition for writing management articles yet.
• I work more, so I have fewer free time at home, and when I do get back home I’m to tired and don’t have energy for serious hacking.

The second is much more prosaic, but no less serious:

I’ve installed Warcraft III and in the past 2.5 weeks spent most of my free time playing it. When I was a kid these games seemed too short, but now it feels longer (maybe they did make this one longer, though). Today I’ve finally finished the whole single-player campaign after defeating Archimonde with the night-elves (and you thought real life is exciting!)

My biggest challenge now is to prevent myself from getting the expansion or engaging in online gaming… If I succeed, this blog just may get back to life again

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The book is very easy going and quick to read, and serves as a nice introduction to the subject, although I definitely don’t agree with the subtitle – From novice to professional, because this book will take you very far from a professional, as it’s basic at best.

Frankly, I would expect a bit more from a book. It only covers the material on a basic tutorial level and rarely goes deeper, which is a shame. The decision to teach Python and Pygame in the same book is questionable. It’s hard to believe a novice will learn Python from the first two introductory chapters, so perhaps aiming the book at Python programmers would be a better idea.

Other cons:

• I don’t like the author’s using his own mathematical library for manipulating vectors and matrices as opposed to using something like Numpy.
• the author ignores the Sprite class of Pygame and develops his own GameEntity instead. I don’t see much justification for this.
• I felt that events were presented in a superficial way. This is probably one of the most important core topics of game programming, and it deserved more attention

On the positive side, the book really is a nice tutorial. If you are familiar with Python and basic math you can actually code a simple game based on this book very quickly, as it contains all the elements you need (at least for 2D games). There’s a lot of code in it, and the code is reasonably well written. This code can be used as a jumpstart for your own game.

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Graphically, it is even better than the previous versions. Everything is very detailed and realistic. Lots of improvements have been made that make the game less irritating – larger schools, police and fire stations (a city no longer needs the 3 for every few blocks), a huge amount of transportation options and the biggest boon of all – regional play, which allows to build several inter-communicating cities in a region, and specialize each one.

There are drawbacks too, however. The game is very complicated and difficult to play right. I can’t imagine a new player (who’ve never played the previous versions of SimCity) getting around the game, since the tutorials are very superficial and there’s no “encyclopedia” (like in Civilization) to explain everything. Seasoned players won’t find it easy, for instance managing the traffic is just nightmare – so much, as a matter of fact, that dedicated fans have developed several add-ons (and “mods”) that alleviate the problem.

All in all it’s a fun game to play. And time consuming

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First and foremost, the graphics. When the first news of Civ 4 started coming, I joined the sceptist train, thinking that a game like Civ doesn’t need good graphics. Well, I must admit I was wrong. The beautiful full-3D world (with zooms and camera rotations) of Civ 4 is amazing, and adds a lot to the gameplay. Everything is more realistic, and for a change you feel creating something *real* and not just tiled icons on a tilted map.

The user interface is very well-though and convenient to use. Everything is accessible in a single click / keyboard shortcut, and the quick city view is very useful.

Also, I must say that the “civics” are cool and IMHO preferable to several hard-coded goverment types. If goverment would be that simple, political science wouldn’t be a University degree. A goverment is an amalgalm of “civics” – approaches to issues like economics, population, religion, research, etc.

From reading in the manual a bit I see that Civ 4 has a lot of advanced features I haven’t come to need yet (I didn’t complete a game yet, my first game is now in year 920 BC) but I’ll love in the later stages – normally designed city build queues, many options for worker automation, unit stacks / group orders, etc.

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So, after another drool-generating review I read yesterday, I decided to buy myself a gaming-grade graphics card (not one of the fancy ones – GeForce 5500, 128 bit 256 MB). It’s back to gaming !!! Goodbye sanity

And Civilization IV… is right now busy downloading its own patch from 2KGames’ website. Yummy yummy…

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That site has a great collection of “abandonware” – old software (games) that have their copyrights expired and are available for free download.

I downloaded Colonization, Settlers II and now am enjoying a flashback into my early teenagerhood by playing Dune 2. Gosh, how primitive this game is, how unconvenient the controls (no grouping, no convenient right button) but it’s still lots of fun !

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Available for download (free document, GPL code) from my website, programming section.

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http://www.geocities.com/spur4444/prog/jamca/jamca.html

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