Need python coders for game!

[H3LLRAISOR]

'Ahem' it's been awhile since I've had to do this. Well if anyone still remembers me/ us we're a humble little indie team that wants to make games and has been working on one slowly for the past nine months. Originally it started with one coder for about 6 months and it's been done on free time. Now our little team has a nice 8 members.

Three coders (one is active, one is in the hospital and one is always busy and can't contribute as much).
Two artists (our cutscene/sprite animations artist/background artist, is the sample picture below. And our foreground tile design artist who matches pretty well with our Art lead).
A musician and editor (with a nice combination of techy/rock/orchestra music our musician is amazing with the help of our editor. It only gets better! Sadly though we only have two tracks, a lot more to go.
Me: Writer/director/narcissists/narrator/level designer/gamer with a steam library of 300 games (not including physical game copies)/ Conqueror of difficult games/weird guy. I'm the youngest as well as the least experienced. I'm honest.
Everyone on the team has real professional experience excluding myself.

It's a humble fun little freelance team (freelance for now), if you don't like that, I shall not impose and save you time.

I will let you know that this will be a freelance project. If I was paying, we would have been done with the testing phase 5 months ago. We've basically been working on this on our free time until we can get the first chapter done to release a demo. It's been tough. Once however when we get into funding, depending on the teams skills, funding will be spread accordingly. As of right now, why things have been slow is simple. A lot of our members have jobs and go to school and have loved ones. meaning submitting anything a piece of 2-3 hours of work every 1-2 weeks is expected. It was less than that when we started but with one person.

This is not just for money, this is for the passion of making games/enjoying games. I started this team with a simple vision and that vision was to make affordable games for everyone to enjoy. Which by that I mean everything (if we go well with our current project and get to make future ones) will be sold for $10. If you do not agree with this, I will grant you the courtesy of not reading anymore.

FOR THOSE WHO MADE IT THROUGH

I'm Julio, I'm nuts and to an extent non-realistic. This is one of the few things I can write without goofing off/making obscure references to something. Anyway our team needs more people who're familiar with python/ willing to learn python. If you have previous experience in the industry and are looking to branch off to different territories, we have a nice home for you.

The game will be a tough as nails 2D side scroller with a few twists and is inspired by modern day indies and classics (modern like meatboy, old like sonic the hedgehog). going for a cartoony/twisted look with a side of being colorful. As seen on the picture below will demonstrate the look we're going for. That lovely block thing is our villain.

I would appreciate samples of you knowledge of code (I can't really code myself, but I know how to run it and I can tell if it's spotty).

Here are some notes I'd like you to take

Screw professionalism. You don't have to act fancy, just act respectful (you can curse or talk in L33t for all I care, just don't go around offending anyone like a jackass, if so, go work for EA or some other company. Everyone in the team is from different parts of the US/ and the world. So please refrain from any statements that could cause problems. I like it being fun and everyone working in collaboration with each other. I'd rather not deal with offending one another.

I'm crazy. I have a storyboard I've been writing out with my Artist, while she has barely any free time I just work with her and see if we can make parts of the story weirder or more entertaining. The storyboard is incomplete essentially, while there is a version of which is finished, I personally want to make sure that things go well. I have an offensive sort of humor as well as a friendly sense of humor. Don't take me seriously with what I write sometimes.

Have fun. Remember this is freelance. Yes, I would like everyone to work on it on there free time and put there souls into it so that we can go into a kickstarter faster. I don't want you to push yourself too hard though. Have fun, do a piece bit by bit every time you get the chance. But if hey, you want to show me and everyone what you can do. Do it, I'm not stopping you. If you show that you're just that damn good then expect a larger payout in the end, hardworkers deserve a damn fine gift.

Aside from that, if you're interested, give me a holler here on the board or private message me. I look forward to working with you!

-Julio

[EntityReborn]

One thing of note: if your game is pure python, you might not have that great a time selling it. Any program that is bytecompiled is easily reversed. That said, I'm interested. Feel free to PM me, you can see some of my work at http://github.com/EntityReborn/. Some in java, some in python. (SocBot is my biggest original project there, I believe.)

[Diki]

Out of curiosity: why did you decide to use Python?
I absolutely love Python, but I personally wouldn't use it for game development; I'd stick to something a little more powerful like C# or C++, but that's just me. :)

[H3LLRAISOR]

At 2/27/13 06:39 PM, Diki wrote: Out of curiosity: why did you decide to use Python?
I absolutely love Python, but I personally wouldn't use it for game development; I'd stick to something a little more powerful like C# or C++, but that's just me. :)

I'll gladly answer C:
Python isn't a memory user, it's simple enough to take in the simplicity of the game. C# and C++ are great for games, they also use a fair amount of memory. We're using a private code base, sticking to low memory usage is what we're trying to do and the fact that we're using python 2.7 which is still compatible with C and other languages. The consideration has been felt that if we must direct it into another language we will if we have too.
I'm not too familiar with code, most of the other coders I've recruited have worked in the industry one brought up the idea of using python, we ended sticking to it. Leaving isn't a problem though if necessary.
In other words we used it because the game is just that simple, you run, you jump, you wall jump/slide, enemies show up, phase mechanic, rival fight, boss, levels that take 20-30 secs to beat. That's really it.

[Diki]

At 2/27/13 08:27 PM, H3LLRAISOR wrote: C# and C++ are great for games, they also use a fair amount of memory.

They don't really though. A "base" C++ or C# application that does nothing other than execute an infinite loop will use up somewhere around 2-4MB of RAM (which is about the same as Python would be using doing the same thing). Any additional memory will only be allocated if you tell it to, and if you use the scalar types appropriately, such as using a short opposed to an int when values above 65535 (or 32767 if the short is signed) are not required, you can save a lot of memory.

Anyways, most systems today have well over 2GB of memory, which is especially so for systems intended to play games. So long as your programmers aren't horribly inept you won't ever run out of memory.

How much memory are you expecting your target audience's machines to possess?

At 2/27/13 08:27 PM, H3LLRAISOR wrote: The consideration has been felt that if we must direct it into another language we will if we have too.

Have you done performance tests to ensure that Python will be able to adequately run your game?
It would really suck to get a lot of development done to find out that Python is bottlenecking performance and you have to start over in a different language.

At 2/27/13 08:27 PM, H3LLRAISOR wrote: In other words we used it because the game is just that simple, you run, you jump, you wall jump/slide, enemies show up, phase mechanic, rival fight, boss, levels that take 20-30 secs to beat. That's really it.

That sounds to me like it would be ideal for the Unity Engine, which has support for C#, and can be embedded into webpages.

[H3LLRAISOR]

They don't really though. A "base" C++ or C# application that does nothing other than execute an infinite loop will use up somewhere around 2-4MB of RAM (which is about the same as Python would be using doing the same thing). Any additional memory will only be allocated if you tell it to, and if you use the scalar types appropriately, such as using a short opposed to an int when values above 65535 (or 32767 if the short is signed) are not required, you can save a lot of memory.

Hmmm, I see what you mean, I mean thankfully there's a thing known as iron python in which we can compile into a .NET to then de-compile using LRR. The thing is though, could I ask though, what advantages are there to using C#/C++ over python? Again I'm not the one coding it. I'm running things and I was told that Python could get the job done and that it was a pretty basic yet powerful program. Is there some sort of hidden issue in where I wasn't informed of?

Anyways, most systems today have well over 2GB of memory, which is especially so for systems intended to play games. So long as your programmers aren't horribly inept you won't ever run out of memory.

How much memory are you expecting your target audience's machines to possess?

Not that much honestly. less than a 1GB probably. The toughest parts are going to be the bosses.

At 2/27/13 08:27 PM, H3LLRAISOR wrote: The consideration has been felt that if we must direct it into another language we will if we have too.

Have you done performance tests to ensure that Python will be able to adequately run your game?
It would really suck to get a lot of development done to find out that Python is bottlenecking performance and you have to start over in a different language.

Yes, I've run it through two different laptops, one is running on windows 7 the other on Ubuntu (linux). They are both able to run it properly without any trouble (Then again we're still in testing). at around 12fps, no lag or glitches (We haven't really moved far enough into the project to really find a glitch).

At 2/27/13 08:27 PM, H3LLRAISOR wrote: In other words we used it because the game is just that simple, you run, you jump, you wall jump/slide, enemies show up, phase mechanic, rival fight, boss, levels that take 20-30 secs to beat. That's really it.

That sounds to me like it would be ideal for the Unity Engine, which has support for C#, and can be embedded into webpages.

I've actually heard a bit of Unity, now as for the time being the free version would be fine (I'm poor I don't have money to afford the pro version).

With so much knowledge and advice we would appreciate any pointers we can get. We really just want to make fun games for everyone to enjoy. If there is the slightest room for improvement or way to find improvement I would gladly listen. The whole point of this post is basically asking for help.

[H3LLRAISOR]

The Ubuntu Laptop is also a decade old and runs on 512MB, so it's pretty low tier.

[Diki]

At 2/28/13 08:01 PM, H3LLRAISOR wrote: what advantages are there to using C#/C++ over python?

C#, and especially C++, are orders of magnitude more powerful than Python.
And for the sake of clarity: when I say "more powerful" I mean that when doing the same thing C# and C++ will do it faster. For example if you are rendering volumetric light, executing a pathfinding algorithm, or simply iterating through a binary search tree, both C# and C++ will do it significantly faster than Python.

There's a reason that pretty much every single big budget AAA title game is coded in C++: it's fast. Half-Life 2, Battlefield 3, Portal, Borderlands 2, Skyrim, Far Cry 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Batman Arkham Asylum/City, Bioshock, et cetera are all coded in C++.
Of course you're not going to have the performance, or deployment. requirements that those examples did, so you'd be fine with something like C# (or even Java if that's your thing, though I personally wouldn't recommend it because of the JVM).

I wrote up a contrived example to display just how significant the performance of C++ and Python is.
Both programs calculate all prime numbers in the range 0-10000; this is done 50 times, and the time taken for each of those is averaged.

The source code for each tests are here:
Python code
C++ code (Note: Will only work on Windows)

And the results are:

Python average time: 1122.600002ms
C++ average time: 49.911226ms

The C++ version is 2249.19% faster.

Again this is a contrived example, and the results should be taken with a grain of salt (I didn't optimise either, for example), but it's still quite clear: Python pales in comparsion to C++'s ability to crunch numbers, which you will do a lot in game development.

At 2/28/13 08:01 PM, H3LLRAISOR wrote: Again I'm not the one coding it. I'm running things and I was told that Python could get the job done and that it was a pretty basic yet powerful program. Is there some sort of hidden issue in where I wasn't informed of?

I wouldn't say there's any "hidden issue". Python is just not compiled in the same way that C++ or C# are.
C++ and C# are compiled into assembly code (technically speaking C++ will probably compile to a lower level language, but for the sake of simplicity we'll just say it's assembly), which is known for being very fast. Python is compiled into bytecode which is executed on a virtual machine, which has several benefits, such as making deployment to different environments/platforms significantly easier (generally it won't require changing any code at all), but one of its downsides is that it has a detrimental affect on performance.

At 2/28/13 08:01 PM, H3LLRAISOR wrote: They are both able to run it properly without any trouble (Then again we're still in testing). at around 12fps

I realise that that was probably not optimised, but 12FPS is very low. The human eye can detect changes/fluctuations in framerate below 24FPS which is why movies run at approximately 25FPS or 30FPS (depending if PAL or NTSC, respectively, is being used). Most modern console games run at 60FPS, though some stick at 30FPS; PC games generally run at the maximum possible FPS the video card allows if vsync is disabled, but since vsync is a good idea to have we'll just say the PC games will typically run around 60FPS as well (assuming a 60Hz refresh rate which is common).

Basically what all that mess is saying is that you should strive for at least 30FPS in your game.

P.S.
It's not my intention to be saying "Don't use Python you fool!" or shit up your thread; I'm just offering some friendly advice based on my experience with both Python and C++.

[Diki]

At 2/28/13 10:27 PM, Diki wrote: Both programs calculate all prime numbers in the range 0-10000

Sorry. I'm an idiot.
The programs calculate the first 10,000 primes, not the primes in the range 0-10,000. Derp.

[H3LLRAISOR]

At 2/28/13 11:35 PM, Diki wrote:

At 2/28/13 10:27 PM, Diki wrote: Both programs calculate all prime numbers in the range 0-10000

Sorry. I'm an idiot.
The programs calculate the first 10,000 primes, not the primes in the range 0-10,000. Derp.

Don't worry, I had a derpy moment too. I tried running the game while having AVG security running in the background and that made the game go slower. It's actually 35FPS

[H3LLRAISOR]

I wrote up a contrived example to display just how significant the performance of C++ and Python is.
Both programs calculate all prime numbers in the range 0-10000; this is done 50 times, and the time taken for each of those is averaged.

The source code for each tests are here:
Python code
C++ code (Note: Will only work on Windows)

And the results are:

Python average time: 1122.600002ms
C++ average time: 49.911226ms

The C++ version is 2249.19% faster.

Again this is a contrived example, and the results should be taken with a grain of salt (I didn't optimise either, for example), but it's still quite clear: Python pales in comparsion to C++'s ability to crunch numbers, which you will do a lot in game development.

Yeah we're not making anything at the level of a AAA game dev crew. Now that you put this up though I am starting to reconsider this choice. The game was specifically entailed to be fast paced. As of right now I'm not seeing any problems occurring though. I'll probably have to discuss this information with my current coder and see what we will make up of this. If there's anything that will make the game feel fast paced and put you on the curve of throwing you off the rails, then I'll take this advice happily.

At 2/28/13 08:01 PM, H3LLRAISOR wrote: Again I'm not the one coding it. I'm running things and I was told that Python could get the job done and that it was a pretty basic yet powerful program. Is there some sort of hidden issue in where I wasn't informed of?

I wouldn't say there's any "hidden issue". Python is just not compiled in the same way that C++ or C# are.
C++ and C# are compiled into assembly code (technically speaking C++ will probably compile to a lower level language, but for the sake of simplicity we'll just say it's assembly), which is known for being very fast. Python is compiled into bytecode which is executed on a virtual machine, which has several benefits, such as making deployment to different environments/platforms significantly easier (generally it won't require changing any code at all), but one of its downsides is that it has a detrimental affect on performance.

Now the thing is we have a bit of a style going through here. The game itself is going through it's own specific animations (sprites, static backgrounds and mostly static foregrounds). Cutscenes will be in a comic style format with narrations and actions. SO, we've been working on this for the past nine months, if we're nearly done with the core design and it's running smoothly still (which we almost have), what then? I mean while we could do the whole testing again through C# with a python clone to use as reference material, but again that took us a while to just do that. Not excluding the fact the lack of help/free time we have. I have however heard of people doing that before though.

At 2/28/13 08:01 PM, H3LLRAISOR wrote: They are both able to run it properly without any trouble (Then again we're still in testing). at around 12fps

I realise that that was probably not optimised, but 12FPS is very low. The human eye can detect changes/fluctuations in framerate below 24FPS which is why movies run at approximately 25FPS or 30FPS (depending if PAL or NTSC, respectively, is being used). Most modern console games run at 60FPS, though some stick at 30FPS; PC games generally run at the maximum possible FPS the video card allows if vsync is disabled, but since vsync is a good idea to have we'll just say the PC games will typically run around 60FPS as well (assuming a 60Hz refresh rate which is common).

Basically what all that mess is saying is that you should strive for at least 30FPS in your game.

Yeah showing from the reply I had before I had AVG running in the background. The game actually runs at 35FPS

P.S.
It's not my intention to be saying "Don't use Python you fool!" or shit up your thread; I'm just offering some friendly advice based on my experience with both Python and C++.

It's fine, I enjoy the fact that someone is willing to at least share advice rather than not warning me at all. No one brought this up before when I was posting my other recruiting post up until now. I'm sure it's not too late and we don't really have a deadline because we're not in funding. however It's going to be a pain just to work it all out again. However I'd rather give something amazing for everyone than give them something average.

[conthekid]

Would you not use Lua over python ?