Pyskool 0.0.2 is upon us! Head on over to the downloads page to get your copy.

So what’s new in version 0.0.2? The main new feature is that violence has been fully implemented. Eric and the Tearaway are now kitted out with fully functional catapults, and Eric and the Bully are also kitted out with fully functional fists. For more details, check the Changelog in the accompanying documentation.

Now get hitting and firing…and modding!

As you will no doubt recall, violence played a large part in the Skool games. If Eric was going to prevent Einstein from reaching the head’s study during break, hitting would be involved; if Eric was going to prevent Mr Wacker from finding the hidden pea shooter on the fire escape, out would come the catapult. Decking one’s teachers and fellow pupils was part and parcel of daily skool life.

About time, then, that support for such violence was implemented in Pyskool. One concept I had to introduce to get this to work was the “uninterruptible command” - that is, a command that survives a lesson change, instead of being replaced by a new command from a new command list from a new lesson. Having teachers or pupils rise suddenly from the floor, or catapult pellets mysteriously vanish, as soon as the (still silent) bell rang was simply not acceptable.

So, anyway, look forward to hitting and firing in Pyskool 0.0.2, which I’ll try to push out the door soon. And, of course, in true Pyskool tradition (if this young project can be said to have established one), punchability and pelletability will be configurable. You want teachers to be vulnerable to Eric’s fist? You got it!

OK, no more procrastination or pre-release polishing. It’s time for Pyskool 0.0.1. You can get it as a tar.bz2 file here or a zip file here. Extract the tarball or zip archive anywhere you like, and read pyskool.html contained within for instructions.

Remember that this is nowhere near being a finished product. There is no game to play yet; I’m just getting the code out there so you can see what’s been done so far and hopefully start mucking around with it - or just complain that the documentation is way too hard to follow.

What ever - try to have fun!