Zappa

Zappa - 0.3

Jordan Lewis (jordanthelewis)

Tags:

Description

From website: It is still in development, but here is the basic idea of Zappa: Classic vertical shooter, with unique hit-point system: All ships and bullets have RGB color values. When a bullet hits a ship, the bullet's color value is subtracted from the ship's color value. When a ship becomes totally black, or RGB 0,0,0, it explodes. Bullets' colors are generated at the moment of their firing, and they equal the color of the ship at that moment.

Links

Home Page: http://silenceisdefeat.org/~jlewis/zappa.html
Source: http://silenceisdefeat.org/~jlewis/code/zappa.py
Windows: http://silenceisdefeat.org/~jlewis/code/zappa.zip

Screenshot

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Releases

Zappa - 0.3 - Oct 16, 2006

Pygame.org account Comments

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August 9, 2008 5:47pm - brian-leebaetz - nickname: (bribaetz)
make it run on gnu linux!
October 22, 2006 6:10am - F. Aschwanden - nickname: (tyger) - 4/5
It works now (source code) on Mac. There is a high play fun it could be extended with some further features: sound, upgrading weapons (shield, bombs, bigger shot,...), different enemy ship types,... I like the way the color changes. Im not sure if it works that way but its cool if it does: The ship can kinda regenerate if its not hit in a certain time (?). By far too many shots from enemy, at least for level one. After I killed all enemies it didnt proceed, guess because its beta. All over a refreshing throw!
October 21, 2006 1:21pm - Jordan Lewis - nickname: (jordanthelewis)
Gal - Thanks for the comment. There is in fact a 'delay' in the main loop that prevents the game from running more than 45 frames per second. About the CPU usage, I think that it is somewhat inevitable that even a minimally complex pygame game will use a large amount of system resources due to python's nature of interpretation. It is possible that the windows version uses more as well, were you using that? Jordan
October 21, 2006 5:23am - Gal Koren - nickname: (kornelious)
Very nice movement. And nice colors too :) I think it would be a good idea to make the arena cyclic in a way that when you reach to the right corner of the screen you appear at the left corner, and via versa. One thing that really bothers me is the 100% CPU usage of the game, and on my 2.4GH laptop it runs extremelly fast and so I get killed within 10 seconds. Maybe you should add a delay somewhere in the main loop
October 21, 2006 12:23am - Jordan Lewis - nickname: (jordanthelewis)
Farai - That confusion came from a versioning mistake by myself. Version 0.3 as posted does not have sound; I confused two versions. If you'd be so kind as to try the source again, I think it will work this time. As for the mac version, I don't know if I can get that working at all, since I don't have a mac on which to test it thoroughly. Thanks for the comment :)
October 19, 2006 1:42pm - F. Aschwanden - nickname: (tyger) - 3/5
Source code wont work on my Mac neither: "NameError: global name "Sound" is not defined". Its locating the "sfx = Sound()" in def main()
October 19, 2006 1:38pm - F. Aschwanden - nickname: (tyger) - 3/5
The "zappa_mac.zip" doesnt seem to work on Max (OSX 10.4.8): "You cant open "zappa 3". It is either damaged or uncomplete. I will try the source code.
October 18, 2006 12:05pm - Peter Nosgoth - nickname: (nightwishphantom)
Uhm... well the enemies shoot pretty much all the time. The distance between two shots are smaller than the ship, so you will be hit no matter what. Reaction delay means I press the button (lets say the arrow-right-button) and than the ship tilts to the right and then starts moving. So there is a time delay between pressing the button and the ship moving. (Should be something like 200ms). When then trying to fly left it has to stop, tilt straight, tilt left, start moving. This takes maybe 600ms which is awfully much. I agree that it is a neat feature and it does add to realism (as much as it can considering the non-existance of those spaceships). However, it should be reduced. When moving right at full speed, then turning left should take about 100ms, not more. The accalleration effect is also too strong. Since its version 0.3 its ok, but future versions should be balanced better.
October 18, 2006 9:38am - Jordan Lewis - nickname: (jordanthelewis)
Thanks for the comments! Peter - Could you elaborate on your critique of the control system? I understand that the acceleration-based movement can be annoying, since there isn't instant movement once the key is pressed, but personally I think it adds an element of realism to the thing. Also, I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by 'reaction delay', could you please elaborate on that as well? Thanks, Jordan Lewis
October 17, 2006 7:37pm - Gonzalo Sanchez - nickname: (gonzalo) - 4/5
nice work men. and nice colors, the vintage style :P. in my opinion for sound you must use beeps (like wolfstein 3d) and music of the atari era.
October 17, 2006 4:06pm - Peter Nosgoth - nickname: (nightwishphantom)
Very well structured code. Finally someone who wrote something new (really hard these days). Some hints: The controls are pretty hard. I have very view control of my spaceship. Dodging enemy fire is nearly impossible. Make the reaction delay shorter. There are too many enemies at once. Add some sound: http://pygame.org/wiki/resources Anyways, I like it.