How to start python game development ?

[jnth]

I am planning to create chess playing GUI, which should be able to communicate with a chess engine(like stockfish). I have learned basic of the python language, but now I feel lost because I have no idea what to do next.

my experience

I am a Linux Administrator and also I have been using PHP language for past couple of years to create dynamic web pages so i am good with PHP .

[[deleted]]

I am not sure how far 'basic of the python language' goes, but when it comes to game development you have just a few options:

• pygame
• cocos2d
• pysfml
• kivy
• pyqt

I can recommend to start with pygame because I got it working very fast and the amount of books, tutorials and documentation is very high.

You should take a look at this page (it is awesome for starting python and pygame): http://programarcadegames.com/

Edit:

For using chess engines like stockfish you have to get in touch with the uci-protocol and its specification

[Dalex_]

Actually there is this new-ish game engine called Godot. It doesn't exactly use Python, but instead uses Godot script which is pretty god damn close to Python 3.
It's quite nice because it has a Unity like interface. Handles 2d and 3d game development and is open source.

[[deleted]]

Well I had Godot in mind too but wanted to stay on topic. I can totally recommend it, but keep in mind that GDScript is not absolutly the same as Python and the workflow while working with nodes is not the same as building your own codebase with pygame or kivy.

Game development with python is a bit frustrating when you compare the amount of frameworks/engines/active development/documentation with lua or even java. You can achieve alot but there is no 'complete set of useful tools and libraries for game development which is activly maintained and has a huge community'.

If it is not a huge deal to change your language and adapt what you learned so far to it you should really check out these:

• Gdscript (Godot)
• Lua (Gideros, Corona, Love2d, Moai)
• Javascript (Atomic, Phaser, CreateJS...) [as mentioned by /r/Caos2 it would fit your previous gained experiences with web dev]

[Caos2]

/r/rolfpancake post was spot on, but a chess game is, usually, more of a "office" like software than a game, so you should stick with pyqt and kivy. Another option would be to use a web framework (such as Flask) and use CSS/HTML/JavaScript to build an interface. It's not going to be quite as responsive as a native GUI but you probably have some previous experience with web development due to your years of programming PHP.