Universe Game Engine - Tests

I just checked into the CVS a new module "universe" which is to become the game engine framework as described in http://light-princess.sf.net/Universe .

Currently, this is just a set of functional unit tests (that is to say, they are "functional tests" of modules). There is obviously a lot left to do.

However, the tests are not bad as a "keyboard banger" game, as one of our youngest testers has determined.

The tested modules are "text.py" which does justified-text formatting, drop-shadows, and scrolling text, and "template.py" which defines the on-screen layout of the various modes ("Walk", "Talk", "Inventory", etc). The templates are implemented as objects collecting the appropriate pygame "Rect" objects.

I'm continuing to work on an "image" module which will handle routine tasks like fitting an on-screen background image into the background.

I must admit I'm not doing this in some kind of rigidly planned schedule, just working on what seem to be apparent needs.

I got some help from Phil Hassey (very active pygame developer), who wrote the "pgu" utilities. I think this will be a suitable way to implement the "sentence builder" widget, and pgu routinely handles things like modal dialog boxes, so we can use those for game configuration settings (fullscreen/windowed, audio track volumes, animation and image processing quality, and whatever else seems to need configuration).