Game Programming at scriptedfun » python

Music and Sound Effects for Games

Chuck — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:15:57 +0000

A great article called Tools of the Trade has just been posted on MochiLand. It gives a list of software and libraries which you can use to generate sound effects and music for your games.

Among the different aspects of game development, I think I’m weakest at sound matters. This is something that has to change though, with the success that audio-based games have been having, such as the IGF winner Audiosurf and the Python-based Frets on Fire.

It’s good that Kunal Joshi pointed out in the comments the amazing DrPetter’s sfxr, an excellent (and free!) piece of software that generates retro-style sound effects. This was used by Kian in his very funny, and VERY ORIGINAL (you have to see it!) game You Have To Burn The Rope.

Sorry, e-mail subscribers! And some thoughts on web games with Python…

Chuck — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:19:45 +0000

Hi everyone! First of all, I would like to apologize to all the e-mail subscribers who received a bunch of old posts in their e-mail recently. I’ve been tweaking my site to feature the content people find most useful on the front page, and this had the unintended side effect of sending out an e-mail containing the “front-paged” articles. I hope that this didn’t bother you.

Yes, it has been a very long time since I posted on Python. As I have said some time earlier, I’m trying to refocus this site to deal with more general game development. A side effect of this is, I’ve spent a lot more time coding and learning, and no time writing . In particular, I’ve been looking at writing games using Adobe’s Flex SDK.

I find working with Flex appealing because of the potential of the output to reach a large number of people. But Python is a language that is very close to my heart, and I’d be very interested in a Python based environment that would allow me to make games for the web. Fortunately, such an environment exists already, in the form of Microsoft’s Silverlight, paired up with IronPython. I’ve been dabbling with this platform as well, and I hope to write games for it once the platform matures.

If you’re interested in learning more about writing web games with Python, I recommend the excellent article Creating a Game Using Python and Silverlight 1.1. Are there any other resources about game programming using Silverlight/Python that you would recommend?

Subpixel Rendering for Pygame

Chuck — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:13:16 +0000

Will McGugan has just posted some Pygame code that will allow subpixel rendering, which should allow Pygame developers to render smooth looking graphics using software rendering only. I haven’t tried the code yet, although it says in the post that the rendering should be as fast as ordinary blits, but more memory will be taken up – I think that the trade off is more than worth it.

I learned about subpixel rendering only very recently after playing the amazing physics-based game BreakQuest, which utilizes the technique to allow great-looking particle effects to be implemented through software rendering. BreakQuest’s author Fèlix Casablancas explains the concept of subpixel rendering very well in a forum thread on his website, and I think it’s a good read for anyone who wants a clear explanation of the concept of subpixel rendering.

Will has other Pygame stuff on his website, and I’m sure there’s a lot more on the way – he’s the author of an upcoming Pygame book from Apress . I’m excited already!

PyWeek 4

Chuck — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 04:40:19 +0000

From the PyWeek website:

The next challenge is PyWeek 4, which will run in the first week of April.

Register NOW!

The PyWeek challenge:

Invites entrants to write a game in one week from scratch either as an individual or in a team,

Is intended to be challenging and fun,

Will hopefully increase the public body of game tools, code and expertise,

Will let a lot of people actually finish a game, and

May inspire new projects (with ready made teams!)

Entries must be developed in Python during the challenge, and must incorporate some theme decided at the start of the challenge. See the challenge rules for more information.

I haven’t tried participating in one of these yet (I got as far as signing in and writing a very enthusiastic plan of action, but no code ), but I think I should give this a shot this April, and you should, too! I’m amazed at the output that this has generated so far – in a span of just one week, plenty of very good games have been written. The physics-based Nelly’s Rooftop Garden and the well-polished Trip on the Funny Boat are personal favorites – try downloading these games and see what can be done in just a week.

Making good art has always been my weakness – that’s why I rely so much on SpriteLib. Maybe I should consider using simple geometric objects and pygame.draw…

Unity To Enable Nintendo Wii Games

Chuck — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 14:30:38 +0000

San Francisco – March 13, 2007 – We’re extremely proud to announce that later this year, Unity will support creating games for the amazing Nintendo Wii game console.

This is a very intriguing announcement. I’ve been a huge Mac fan since I was a kid, and I really thought that the Unity game development tool was a fantastic concept when I saw it. With this announcement, making games for the revolutionary Wii may become a possibility for a lot more people, hopefully for you and me.

With this, it becomes possible to make Wii games with Python! Well, sort of. Unity supports game scripting via the language Boo, which uses a Python-inspired syntax. With this feature, it should be easier for Pythonistas to learn how to use Unity.

Currently, Unity is a Mac-only tool, but supports deployment on Windows and Mac. Eventually, I hope to own my own Mac and a copy of Unity. All I have to do now is look for $2700 to spend…

Thousand Parsec Participating in Google Summer of Code

Chuck — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 13:35:47 +0000

From DevMaster.net:

Thousand Parsec is a vibrant free and open source project, creating a framework for 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate) space strategy games. We are happy to announce that this year we are also participating in Google Summer of Code as a mentoring organisation. We have prepared a special page with information and ideas for students, who would like to work on a task for Thousand Parsec. Join us, it will be fun, you’ll gain a new experience, learn something new, play games and if you finish successfully you can even get 4500$. The deadline for submissions of student applications is 24th of March.

For those of you who are eligible to participate in Google Summer of Code, this seems to be an interesting project to participate in. Aside from the possibility of earning money, you will actually get to work on a large project with other people – a big step from the simple examples that we have considered in this site so far. If you plan to join the game industry anytime in the future, this is you chance to gain experience.

Another fact that caught my attention is this project’s extensive use of Python. If you’ve been to this site before, then you’re probably already familiar with Python. If not, I encourage you to look into it – I think that it’s a great language to work with, and if you’re already familiar with programming, it should only take you less than a weekend to pick it up.

Some of the Python-related tasks listed on the site include:

Develop a 3D client for the game (a pyOgre client was started)
Add testing to libtpproto-py
Improve wxWidget’s pyAUI
Implement a new Ruleset in a Python Server

Several of the tasks call for “Good Python Skills”. If you’re looking for a project to work on, I suggest that you give this a look.

And yes, there are several C++ – related jobs as well