Continuing the trend of implementing those special playtimes for Skool Daze mode, I am pleased to report that the playtimes where the little boys gang together and then roam the skool looking for big kids and teachers to knock down - Playtime-Stampede-{1,2} in skool_daze.ini - are production-ready in Pyskool. Now, these playtimes are not “special” in the same sense as the peas, grass and mumps ones, which are used to replace “normal” playtimes on random occasions. The stampede playtimes are officially in the main timetable.

What was the point of them, though? It’s not really clear, and I doubt that Dave Reidy is available for comment - if he even remembers the answer. Perhaps it was a way to make little boys nos. 1-9 and 11 grab our attention in a game in which they were otherwise not really actively involved. (Little boy no. 10 was otherwise involved in that his duty was to inform Eric of what was afoot in the peas, grass and mumps escapades.) Or perhaps it was meant to represent a protest by those same little boys against not being otherwise actively involved. Maybe even both. We just don’t know.

Anyway, onward. Right now I’m tackling the trickiest part of Pyskool so far: the coordination between teacher, Einstein and Eric during lessons. Teachers will now hunt down Eric if he’s absent from class, but there are other details - such as giving Eric lines for being late, or for showing up initially, leaving while class is in progress, then returning again before Einstein has finished telling the teacher that he’s gone - that remain to be sorted out.

Remember those “special” playtimes in Skool Daze? Three playtimes out of eight (on average, in the long run) were one of those where Eric was accosted by a small boy and told some story about Boy Wander, Einstein or Angelface. (Press ‘U’ if you understood.) Eric then had to fix the race to the fire escape between Mr Wacker and Boy Wander so that the tearaway won and picked up the hidden pea shooter with Eric’s name on it before the head found it. Or Eric had to keep on beating Einstein in the face to prevent him from getting to Mr Wacker’s study before the end of break - where, in typical swot fashion, he would tell the head what Eric was up to (bloody snitch). Or Eric had to stay out of Angelface’s way to avoid catching mumps, otherwise Mr Rockitt would come trundling along to send our hero home. Boo!

Anyway, these special playtimes have now been implemented in Pyskool, and will appear in 0.0.5. In addition, Mr Wacker tracks down and expels Eric as soon as he passes the critical 10000 lines mark - a feature which adds a sense of completeness to the game. If you can call it a game yet. It’s getting close, I think.

Pyskool 0.0.4 is out. As usual, you can download it from the cunningly named downloads page.

For this release, I have concentrated on making Pyskool into a bit more of a game than it has been so far - in Skool Daze mode, at least. So, this time round, Eric can write on blackboards; the teachers will reveal their safe combination letters when all the shields are flashing; Eric can open the safe after writing the correct combination code on a clean blackboard (Mr Wacker’s letter comes first, remember); and Eric will go up a year if he manages to unflash all the shields after opening said safe.

Now, Eric’s job is made somewhat easier than in the original game because (a) the teachers still don’t dish out lines as diligently as they should, and, in any case, (b) Eric’s never expelled, no matter how many lines he gets. Perhaps Pyskool 0.0.5 will address some of those issues.

In other news, you should find that Pyskool’s keyboard responsiveness has improved (so even quick tappings of keys will be processed), and you’ll also find a ready-made custom ini file in the examples directory: sd_take_too.ini. Give it a try with:

$ ./sd.py -i examples/sd_take_too.ini

and see if you recognise the new(ish) teacher.