Ludum Dare #27compo

Microbes

by keyboardmonkey

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.03

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.76

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.50

Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.82

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.86

Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.48

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.43

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.67

Coolness★★★★★★★★★★61%

Microbes, a life in ten seconds.

Microbes was created in half a day for Ludum Dare 27, 2013.
I hope you have fun playing it :)

It was a late entry, I spent about 12 hours on this.

* you are a microbe with a 10 second lifespan.
* eat green/blue microbes to extend your life.
* avoid red/pink microbes who steal your life.
* score is determined by the number of seconds you stay alive, plus the amount of microbes you ate.
* two player hotseat for your friends.

_Added fixes for crash bugs only._

== For Windows ==

Everything included in the download

== For GNU / Linux ==

Requires Python 2.7 and PyGame.

apt users can simply install with:

:$ sudo apt-get install python-pygame

and play with:

:$ python microbes.py

Please substitute your favorite package manager when appropriate :-)

== Tools used ==

* Geany code editor and bash terminal
* GIMP for graphics
* MilkyTracker for music

Resources were created by me, from scratch.

== License ==

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

Comments24

rfgpfeiffer26 Aug 2013, 08:47

greetings, fellow pygame coder!

markengley26 Aug 2013, 21:02

Hi, sorry but I can't run this even though I have python installed, I think because it requires pygame. Is there any way you could have included it in the download?

Feysoura26 Aug 2013, 22:07

couldn't play it, game crashed!

Cthulhu27 Aug 2013, 05:18

Game crashed :(
It looked cute.

TheSambassador27 Aug 2013, 05:22

Game looks nice, but you're going to have a hard time getting people to play it when it requires that they have Python AND Pygame installed.

keyboardmonkeyauthor27 Aug 2013, 05:25

@markengley, Feysoura & Cthulhu, sorry it did not run. It does use PyGame, I included helpful steps on this above, I will update to include direct links to the installers if this helps.

ENDESGA27 Aug 2013, 05:26

wow, written in Python? that's neat :)

very cool game overall :D

-ENDESGA

keyboardmonkeyauthor27 Aug 2013, 06:21

Hi folks. I have tried to create a windows executable but it fails to run. Running via source is still the way to go. Thank you for you time :)

doonay2127 Aug 2013, 18:29

Fortunately had everything to play this game. Good job! Yet I think Windows executable would give you more ratings. Anyways good luck!

keyboardmonkeyauthor27 Aug 2013, 19:17

I have tried using py2exe on a work pc, however the result did not run.

Tonight I found the pyg project which lets one distribute pygames as one bundle with an exe, however I cannot test this. If anyone can give feedback I would appreciate it!

The link is: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18686471/microbes/microbes-LD27-submission.zip - run the included "run.bat" file *fingers crossed*

berkano27 Aug 2013, 20:16

Loving the XM music! I didn't get all the requirements working yet to run the game, but will try to figure it out.

local minimum27 Aug 2013, 21:04

As a micro biologist I must say I don't fully recognize the microbes, but it's hard not to like the combination of python and microbiology. (I was first pressing WASD, which made the game crash, so you might want to look into that.)

Dissing28 Aug 2013, 06:10

Very nice game. Loved the graphics. But next time please show the time on the screen and not in the shell. The game was way to fast-paced to look both at the game and the shell.

keyboardmonkeyauthor28 Aug 2013, 17:43

berkano, which OS are you running? I tried include thorough steps up above, if those did not work I'd like to find out why and update my steps.

local minimum, they are mostly imaginary designs ;)

Dissing, the time is actually displayed as a bar underneath your character, but you are right to suggest a numeric display too.

Thank you all for the feedback! Appreciated.

Thermite29 Aug 2013, 08:57

Nice work for half a day!

Latcarf29 Aug 2013, 22:06

Good game!

Brejlounek29 Aug 2013, 22:25

Good gamplay, 90 here :) Also, make exe!

keyboardmonkeyauthor30 Aug 2013, 06:07

Hello all, I have made a 32-bit exe for you Windows folk :D

Have fun!

keyboardmonkeyauthor30 Aug 2013, 18:15

@local minimum, thanks for pointing out that crash bug. I have fixed that - luckily the rules say crash fixes are ok. No new content added.

Rick Hoppmann31 Aug 2013, 10:46

Was very laggy, even though my hardware was updated recently..
The game mechanic is well known. The audio is ok.
I like the colors used, but not the sprites itself.

Cosmologicon31 Aug 2013, 18:41

Cool. The gameplay is pretty familiar and there's not a lot of variety, but the challenge level and pacing are spot on, so I wanted to replay it a few times. My best score is 133. I thought the music and graphics set a nice creepy mood, and I thought the names that pop up when you press Tab are pretty funny. My main suggestion would be to make it clearer whether I actually eat another microbe.

ZYXer1 Sep 2013, 00:33

Not bad for 12 hours! Simple concept, but well implemented and with really cool graphics!

manuq3 Sep 2013, 20:05

Couldn't play it, The traceback is pasted below, it can't find an ubuntu related font. I think you should add fallback to use another font. I hope this is useful to you.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "microbes.py", line 286, in <module>
score_card_image = draw_score_card(score_card)
File "microbes.py", line 259, in draw_score_card
font = pygame.font.Font('UbuntuMono-B.ttf', 16)
IOError: unable to read font filename

keyboardmonkeyauthor7 Sep 2013, 07:11

manuq, I apologize for that! Added the missing font in the repo, thanks for the feedback!