PyStroke: Pre-alpha at last!

It’s been a long time coming, but I finally got my game engine properly online in a version controlled, browsable form. Say hello to PyStroke v0.02!

This isn’t an amazing success, or even much of a step forward, in terms of programming. I haven’t worked much on it since Ludum Dare, thanks to various assignments, including writing a twenty-page report on PyStroke and assorted research as part of my Final Year Project. However, I have met some nice people through Reddit and Twitter who are interested in reading the code and giving it a try. As well as that, I wanted to have a build online by Christmas. Unfortunately that wasn’t possible, given the aforementioned assignments taking up so much time, but less than two weeks later isn’t too bad, I don’t think. And technically, my Ludum Dare game included a build of the engine more than a week before Christmas, it just wasn’t very readable. So overall, I think I succeeded.

The code isn’t exactly pretty, but it is very, very much a work in progress – pre-alpha is even being a tad generous. I have used it to create games, but I don’t necessarily think it follows that someone else will be able to. In the next week, I hope to knock together an extremely simple game and write a little tutorial on how the engine is used, as I see it.

There is one semantic bug that isn’t going to go away for a little while – rotation of the ‘vex’ (or vector sprites) uses a slightly incorrect call to do some of its calculation. The rotation works, but under the hood it isn’t strictly right. I’ll need to give that some time as a priority in the coming days.

Anyway, I’m glad to have it finally out there! Feels good. Expect to hear more about it as January (and the year) continues.