Introduction

JUST GET ME STARTED

The following videos will explain how to get you started. They explain setting up the software on your own computer and getting it to work. It also is an introduction to where we are at with Speckpater our first game. You could also check out our links to Python and Speckpater . 

playtime1 (26MB)

playtime2 (22MB)

Use this free online book to learn python and game programming. Note that the programs in the book use Python 3 and not Python 2.  

 

Introduction

Playtime is a MAYO project to allow anyone to help develop Catholic computer games or other programming projects.The aim is to contribute to developing a Catholic youth culture. Games should be compatible with Catholic teaching and promote Catholic ethics. Ideally they should be so good that they are mass market alternatives to games of questionable morals. They must be fun and be good recreation, ie to help re-create the youth of today into the Catholic leaders of tomorrow.

 

Technologies 

One of the important themes of Catholic Social Teaching is the preferential option for the poor. This means all we should do should aim to not just help the poor, but to become true friends with the poor. Thus, we have a preferential option for open source technologies. This means a poor person anywhere in the world should be able to download the technologies we use for nothing and join in our projects just as much as us. Most major technologies have free alternatives:

Microsoft Windows: Linux

Microsoft Office: OpenOffice

Visual Basic: Eclipse + Python + PythonCard

Adobe Photoshop: Gimp

Adobe Illustrator: Inkscape

There are also many others. The only one we are aware of that has no useful alternative is Flash.

We have a preference for Python as a programming language.

 

Projects

PlaytimeEducation To create the tutorials so others can easily get involved in the following projects.

GoogleEarth To create a Google Earth project on the life of St. Eugene

Speckpater To modify the game Bible Dave to include a scripture component and repackage as Speckpater.

AngelForce To modify similar games to create the AngelForce game using pygame.

RescueForce To create a game where you create a team and then go to help fix a natural disaster.

makechar Is a project to use PythonCard, Blender2pygame and Blender to create a character creator.

Intro Animation To create a small intro animation with Blender.

 

Roles

There are several roles required to develop a game. Each has a specific expertise.

Project Manager

Oversees the project and makes sure all is going well.

They will have to be familiar with most of the technologies used.

Programmer

Code development, mainly python.

Technologies to be familiar with will include Python, Eclipse, Pygame, PythonCard, SVN, WinMerge.

Graphics

Could be a graphic artist, but should be using some kind of tool, eg GIMP, Blender, SketchUp, (Photoshop) to develop the graphics for the game.

Technologies to be familiar with will include Gimp, Blender, Sketchup, Inkscape.

Story Development

Comes up with the dialogues, storyline, etc.