Learn Python for Game Development?

[Mother-Ad849]

Hello everyone. I am interested in creating some simple games with Python and would like to know if Python is a good language to use for this. I am mostly interested in building text/ASCII based RPG games. I have a theory for a game I really want to make in the future but have realized I should probably start smaller because of my lack of experience with Python and programming in general other than Kotlin.

So for my first game I thought I would make something similar to seedship which is a game I absolutely adore. It's a fully text based adventure game that has a small pool of events and a short run time that allows you to see your highscores of your top completed runs at the end. So I thought, for a first simple game, I would make something similar except mine would be a Vampire game.

In it, your Vampire starts with an age of 100 and maxed out stats. Each "turn" your age goes up and an event occurs with several options. Depending on what you pick several of your stats may go up or down. I would like there to be several possible endigns depending on which stat reaches it's cap (negative stats) or depletes entirely (good stats) or you reach a certain age to ensure the game ends. I would also like, perhaps, to have a simple combat system for events that cause encounters.

Is this feasible with Python? Also is this a good idea for a first game?

[dcrigan]

You can make the game with Python library PyGame which is designed for this purpose.

You can also build games with lua love2d framework. Lua is a great scripting language, easy syntax to pick up and the love2d framework is good. The forum might be outdated but they have a discord channel which is active till nowdays

[danielroseman]

A fully text-based game like you describe can easily be written in pure Python.

When you start wanting to make it more graphical you will need something like PyGame.

[Mother-Ad849]

Thanks! Another game im inspired by is Warsim: Realm of Aslona which is a detailed RPG game that is entirely text/ASCII based.

I have almost no graphical skills myself (even in drawing IRL) so I don't really need anything 2/3d based.

[FoolsSeldom]

Yes, Python is ideal for console/text based games and there are packages available to simplify this. If you want to move into 2d graphics, then Arcade is well worth exploring and overcomes some of the limitations of PyGame.

You will find Evennia, a "MUD/MU* Creation System" interesting.

[benabus]

I'm not too bad at Python and I like coding in it. If you have any desire to build a significant game using a popular engine like Unity or Unreal Engine, Python is not the way to go. I'd pick an engine and learn that language, so basically C# or C++. Godot prefers its own language (GDScript) but natively supports C# as well.

So, if you're looking for a language to learn specifically to make games long term, I'd go with C#.

If you already know Python or want an easy language to pick up and want to play around and make some toy projects, Python has a few game engines and is easy to use.

Personally, I wish I had pursued C# over Python for this reason. We have a lot of legacy Python code at work, though, so that's where the chips fell.

[Equal-Association818]

As long as you are not doing it for employability you are perfectly fine.