Stamp on a dude - a mammoth game

Requirements

• Python
• Pygame

Download

Installing and running

Extract the package and start mammoths.py.

tar xzf mammoths-1.1.tar.gz
cd mammoths-1.1
python mammoths.py

Game play

The goal is to move mammoths so that they stamp on every dude in the game board.

Select a mammoth to be moved by clicking it or by pressing TAB.

Move the selected mammoth by clicking its neighbouring squares or use keypad.

The mammoth stamps on a dude if there are more mammoths than other dudes in the dude's neighbouring squares, and if the dude cannot escape to a square where there are fewer mammoths around.

The mammoth is speared if it is alone, that is, there are no other mammoths in the surrounding squares, and if there are two or more dudes next to it.

When all dudes are stamped, you get an extra mammoth and move to the next level. New levels have three dudes more than their predecessors.

The game ends when your mammoths are dead or when the rest of the dudes have found positions where they cannot be stamped on (in the latter case you have to press Q to quit). Your score is the number of stamped dudes.

What is "Your game" string

When you move to the next level or press 'Q' (for Quit) or when you have just lost all your mammoths, the game prints out "your game" that far. The game is presented as space separated base-89 numbers. The first number is the seed of the random number generator. Moves on each level are encoded to the following numbers. The game can be reproduced and continued (if you still have living mammoths) when you give the numbers as the first command line parameter. Single quotes around the numbers seem to work in many Unix shells.

For example, try

python mammoths.py '6<8UK1 cL;^)-]qtnV@3k}_.!5w/RS:5Ws ^;L(x#gta8Cq(3?RexsCU/vg7VYHF!l1KJ'

Highscore

I got 54 points. (Follow the link to so you can be sure I'm not cheating.)

If someone sets up a highscore server that accepts "your games", I'll promise to link it here. Do not send me your scores, please.

Screenshot

Story behind the game (that is, disclaimer)

I had heard about Pygame library and wanted to get a hands-on feeling on it. Then one day, my three-year old son said he wanted to play a computer game with mammoths on it. So when he went on his afternoon nap, I started looking for Pygame tutorials, writing some code and drawing images. The game was already playable when he woke up. Getting to know Pygame and using it for a simple game like this turned out to be surprisingly easy. Unfortunately, my son would not like the game. "It's boring", he said. Well, I can't blame Pygame on that.

Later on, I added encoding and decoding of moves and tuned the rules a bit. I did not try to trick my son to play the game anymore, though. Instead, I decided to put it on the web. You never know if it will be found by someone who likes boring games.

The disclaimer part: the code is written very quickly indeed. If you would like to try Pygame, you should look for a decent tutorial and ignore this code. It's a bit of a mess.