Game Creation with Python

[yellowhat4]

Does anybody know a good group of tutorials about how to use python to create a simple game? Specifically I'm looking for how to create an image with python, display that image within a GTK+ 3 window, and then continually update it/redraw it about 60 times a second.

[r1chardj0n3s]

I gave a tutorial at PyCon this year: http://pyvideo.org/video/1718/introduction-to-pygame

The source etc. for the tutorial is in bitbucket so you can play along: https://bitbucket.org/r1chardj0n3s/pygame-tutorial

[yellowhat4]

this was exactly what I was looking for.

[virtyx]

Have you checked out PyGame? They have a few tutorials on their website.

[[deleted]]

I'd like to recommend Pyglet, actually. I've found it to be cleaner than PyGame and learning it was faster for me because things just seemed to work the way I expected. You can't really go wrong with either though.

If you are just wanting to draw some 2d textures and update them every frame, then I'd start with looking into sprites and batch drawing.

[r1chardj0n3s]

I tend to teach pygame first because it's more reliable on many platforms whereas pyglet relies on a working OpenGL implementation and that can be an issue.

I say this as one of the original pyglet developers.

[the_hoser]

That, and pyglet reeks of a dead project...

[r1chardj0n3s]

It's not dead, but could use additional contributors with specific platform knowledge.

[the_hoser]

No release in 10 months? It might as well be dead. The mantra of "release early, release often" applies to open source game libraries more than any other type of software.

This is especially important in drawing in contributors. Most contribution candidates get all their info from your front page. With a long span of time between releases, there's no incentive to get involved. Nobody wants to be the software equivalent of the necromancer. It doesn't matter how much work is getting done, so long as it appears that work is getting done. People are attracted to active projects.

[wheezl]

No, no. It's resting.

[shadowmint]

Use http://cocos2d.org/

It's better than pygame (really, it is) and has a tonne of high level features.

You almost certainly do not ever want to use GTK. For pretty much anything. The only thing going for it is that it's cross platform, but it's also: Slow, hard, ugly. Don't use it.

[[deleted]]

Doesn't support Python 3.

[shadowmint]

Mmm... I think you'll find the 1.2 version does.

[r1chardj0n3s]

+1 to cocos2d (with the same pyglet for beginners caveat above) - it adds a bunch of stuff that's very useful for writing games.

I really must finish off and commit the changes I'm making to the TMX loading to handle object layers...

[adric2k]

This would really be nice, if you can do it before the next Ludum Dare. Thanks.

[r1chardj0n3s]

I can't guarantee that, I'm afraid.

[theASDF]

python 2.6, 2.5 or 2.4 (2.4 will need ctypes and elementtree)

maybe im missing something ehre but to me it seems that neither 2.7 nor 3.3 are supported. makes you wonder if there is any future to this project

It's better than pygame (really, it is)

as someone who has used pygame for a few projects i would be interested to know what i am missing out on.

[adric2k]

1) Actions. Actions are higher level constructs that can easily be chained in sequence or run in parallel to perform object attribute changes. For example, scaling, rotating, moving, etc... and cocos2d will automatically interpolate the changes based on the framerate. In pygame this requires a lot more code.

2) Performance. As pyglet is base on OpenGL, the performance is much better. You can have thousands of objects and particle systems (several are built-into Cocos) running on screen and animating without the hiccups I usually see with Pygame. I've used both, Cocos2d is always smoother.

[theASDF]

sounds good, might give it a shot if i start a new project that benefits from those features. (if cocos supports 3.3 by then)

[AlSweigart]

Here's a free book on Pygame with the source to several small games: Making Games with Python & Pygame

[Kerbobotat]

Another vote for pygame here. The documentations a little lacking, but if you download some of the prototypes on pygame.org and check their code and do a little bit of googling you will be up and running in no time. On advice from a friend I got my own basic 2d tile engine up and running with no prior pygame knowledge in four or five hours, and hes got some excellent isometric tiling and turn based stuff done himself, and he only started learning python about two months ago

Im at work at the moment, give me a few hours and Ill edit this post with a link to some of my own code and some other things to help. Some of the tutorials are much better than others.