The Goal
The goal I have set in mind right now is to create a simple lightweight framework for pygame. The reason I’m using the term framework over engine is, that there won’t be any gui for this framework, it will just provide a nice base abstract classes to speed up initial development. Right now I plan on open sourcing the framework once I get it to a workable state/beta.
What is Pygame?
https://www.pygame.org/wiki/about
Why Python?
Python allows me to write code quickly and it’s the language I’m most familiar with.
Why Pygame?
Pygame most importantly lets me make games with Python. Additionally I have experience with it having made multiple small projects for school with it. Lastly Pygame is minimal which lets me do this project and have control and most importantly does not have a gui which in my opinion minimizes the learning curve.
The Plan
I am currently developing the framework in parallel with a small game. The purpose of this is to one help direct the framework with a sense of direction guiding me with what features are needed. I plan to continue doing this with different genres and sizes of games so that I can stay in touch with what’s needed. In addition this method will provide me with examples to go hand in hand with the documentation.
The Game
The game I’m working on in parallel with the framework is what I call a micro roguelike. It will be a small game that you would expect to see in a 1 or 2 day game jam. The idea is that the game will start off with 9 tiles in a 3 by 3 grid and as time and the game progresses the map will get larger and larger.
The Name
Depending on when you are reading this if you check the tags you will see Untitled Framework. That is the name for it right now as I figure out what I want to call it but, right now I’m leaning towards basal which means basic which is sort of my goal for this framework.
basal: forming or belonging to a bottom layer or base.
Documentation
I plan on writing my own documentation with hugo like this site over using something like read the docs. I plan on doing it this way since I want this framework to be very beginner friendly, especially since it takes away some of the more complicated parts of pygame. I plan on doing a mix of writing the documentation in parallel with the code and writing it at the end. The reason behind this is I want it to help give me a break from writing code while I still get to work on this project and I also think it will help me better understand my code. However when I feel really motivated I can just pump out code and worry about the documentation later.
Blog Posts
I plan on doing a weekly blog post updating everyone of my progress while also keeping me motivated which should be coming out on Sundays assuming all goes well. I also will be doing my best to take part in #screenshotsaturday over on twitter so if your interested in that here is my twitter https://twitter.com/Seniorquesopan1