A remake of 'Skool Daze' and 'Back to Skool' using Pygame
Project description
In 1984, Microsphere published Skool Daze, a game for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. In 1985, the sequel Back to Skool was published.
Each game is based in a boys’ school (though Back to Skool adds a playground and a girls’ school) and revolves around the antics of Eric, the hero. In Skool Daze, Eric must steal his report card from the school safe - the combination of which must be extracted from the teachers’ brains using flashing shields or, in the case of the history teacher, post-hypnotic suggestion. In Back to Skool, Eric must get his report card back into the school safe, this time with the extra help provided by a water pistol, stinkbombs, a bike, mice, a frog and a girlfriend.
Pyskool is a re-implementation of these classic games in Pygame, with the aim of making them easy to customise by editing configuration files or - for more advanced customisation - writing some Python code.
Requirements
Pyskool requires Python 2.7 and Pygame (version 1.8+).
On Linux/*BSD, Pygame is available via the package management system: the python-pygame package on Debian-based distros and openSUSE, the pygame package on Fedora, the devel/py-game port on FreeBSD and NetBSD, and the devel/pygame port on OpenBSD.
Windows and Mac OS X users should take care to select the Pygame installer that matches the version of Python that is installed.
Running Pyskool
Pyskool is actually five separate games:
Skool Daze (skool_daze.py)
Back to Skool (back_to_skool.py)
Skool Daze Take Too (skool_daze_take_too.py)
Ezad Looks (ezad_looks.py)
Back to Skool Daze (back_to_skool_daze.py)
Before playing any of these games for the first time, the required images, ini files and sound files will need to be created. This can be done by using the --setup option; for example:
$ skool_daze.py --setup
This will:
download TZX files from the sources listed in images.ini and use them to create the required images in ~/.pyskool/images
write the required ini files in ~/.pyskool/ini
write the required sound files in ~/.pyskool/sounds
After that, Pyskool can be run in Skool Daze mode:
$ skool_daze.py
Playing Pyskool
The keys to move Eric around are:
‘q’ or up arrow - go up stairs, or continue walking in the same direction
‘a’ or down arrow - go down stairs, or continue walking in the same direction
‘o’ or left arrow - left
‘p’ or right arrow - right
‘f’ - fire catapult
‘h’ - hit
‘j’ - jump
‘s’ - sit/stand
‘w’ - write on a blackboard (press Enter/Return to finish)
Other useful keys are:
Escape - quit the game
End - pause/resume
Insert - take a screenshot
F2 - save the game
F6 - load the most recently saved game
F11 - switch between full-screen and windowed mode
F12 - show/hide the menu
For full instructions, see the documentation.
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