A Django games library

After purchasing a Zenva Academy Membership, I’ve been starting to follow the Space Invaders Tutorial. I’ll be logging my progress here. Currently I’ve completed the firing and cooldown mechanics. I also sent through a thread on tribe.acord.software, however this thread will be kept up to date.

One of my main projects at the moment is a games library that will be incoporated into the Stellarios software suite. The idea behind this games library is that, like other sites like agame.com & friv.com, there will be a selection of games that users can play, however we’re taking it one step - or rather, a few steps further than that.

One of the single biggest projects in the suite is our game Star Sailors (development name Manacaster), based on a novella series I’ve been writing on and off over the past few years. One of the reasons for its importance to us is the large amount of citizen science integration that will be inserted into SS. But it’s also big for another reason.

Social networking

One of our key selling points is our emphasis on community and connections. While social networking sites, like Facebook, have had privacy issues, we believe at ACORD that the invention of these networks has been not only one of the greatest innovations in recent history, it has helped forge connections, friendships, and collaboration. Some of the biggest philanthrophic projects have been organised through social media platforms, the Egyptian coup in 2011 was akin to the collapse of the Romanian communist party (what TV and radio did in the 20th century, internet is doing repeatedly in the 21st century) and was largely organised by members of one of the most popular social networks in existence, Twitter.

The introduction of Github has also seen open-source projects (like ours) thrive, with millions of developers and enthusiasts alike banding together to collaborate on projects and software, to improve and to innovate, not just invent. The social networking features of Github (which are only going to improve with the introduction of Github Discussions, which is something that we’ll be incoporating into our forums) have certainly helped with this, with both users of software and developers around the world being able to describe issues that they’re having, and anyone can help them out.

Having seen the impact that these platforms have had, we’ve had an ambition to develop our own social networking service ourselves. But ours is, and will be, much more ambitious than any other social website. Because it won’t just be connecting you with other developers at AC0/RD, and users of our software; it will also be connecting with your other social media profiles (Disqus, Github, Reddit, Facebook, etc) to create a truly unique experience, that works for you and connects you with each of our services (including our games, citizen science, etc).

Your user profile will connect you with others based on your interests, like on popular social networking platforms. But one of the advantages (similar to https://walls.io) is that you can connect it directly to your other accounts, with posts being able to be shared across every platform with just the click of a button.

Websites that have numerous games embedded on them are nothing new. However, what we’re doing is “gamifying” our entire network, and this games library that we’re creating with Django, Python & Unity is at the core of it. Easily earn credits by playing our games, and unlock more games, features and enjoyment. Everything is 100% free, and open-source, and we’re also recreating classic arcade games with our own unique Pixel Art.

Project Arcadia

Project Arcadia, a major project by AC0/RD and a part of AC0/RD, is a collection of retro arcade games that have been remastered and remade using 21st century assets, scripts and hardware.

Each game in Arcadia is carefully designed by our well-made robots to be faithful to the original game, but also to up the fun level. The joys of mashing the physical buttons and manipulating the joystick at an arcade may be (mostly) a thing of the past, but the aim of Arcadia is to give the ability for anyone to play these games again.

Most of the games that are planned to be part of the initial run (Space Invaders, Pacman, Pinball, etc) will feature newly designed, completely original graphics, soundtracks and gameplay that will still pay homage to the original, and much-loved games.

The Games

When someone mentions classic games, what do you think of?

• Pacman
• Space Invaders
• Super Mario
• Donkey KongWe’ll be remaking all these games, and more, in Project Arcadia. What’s more, we’ll be adding new features, new levels and new art into our remakes. Even new lore - while our games will pay homage to the original games, they are (in effect) part of the Star Sailors universe. Monkeys will become “Apexes” (imagine apes crossed with highly-evolved humans), the ships seen in the Star Sailors novels will become the ships that you have to fight with, and against, in Space Invaders. Our goal is a fully unified universe. You can view the lore here.

Integration into Stellarios

When we first came up with the idea of creating a Star Sailors game, we envisioned a collection of applets, each with a different game that would be connected to the others. While you’d still have the open-world sandbox MMORPG to play in, trade and conquer, there would be a series of “mini-games”, which would be snippets of the Star Sailors universe. Playing these minigames would not only unlock more of them, but earn rewards for your player in the main Star Sailors game.

To accomplish this, while you will have the option to play Arcadia games without creating an account, it is highly recommended that you do. By creating an account, you not only get access to the full games library (initially created with Django), you get access to the main Star Sailors game, the community forums and the source code (through authenticiation with Github).

Credits

Thanks to Zenva Academy for the initial “skeleton” of a lot of the Arcadia games, and for helping us to learn how to build these projects.

We hope you enjoy it

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Links:

Forum post: https://forums.acord.software/d/3-space-invaders-game-in-unity

Contributing code through discussion: https://blog.acord.software/post/612260427615928320/contributing-code-through-discussion

AC0/RD Network Digest: https://blog.acord.software/post/611947364722360320/ac0rd-digest-our-network-ambitions

HTML Dashboards: https://blog.acord.software/post/611809431430283264/html-dashboards-for-administration

Project Arcadia: https://forums.acord.software/d/3-space-invaders-game-in-unity/7