[Tutor] game development

[Paul Sidorsky]

Brett Shand wrote:

> so i've been browsing round the game deveopment sites that i can
> find and find that python is never mentioned as a development
> language. is there a reason for this?

Yeah, it's slow.  For most games you need superfast performance.  Python
just can't deliver this.  (At least not yet.)

That's not to say Python is not useful for games, though.  It's already
been used with success in several commercial games as a scripting
language for higher-level parts of the game.  Somebody else will provide
links I'm sure.  Basically these games are constructed in (usually) C
until there is enough of a foundation to start adding game elements
which are then scripted in Python that interfaces with the C stuff.  (I
guess this is called a "bottom-up" approach.)

It can also be used to model games.  The game could be rapidly
prototyped and then speed-critical parts could be converted to C or
assembler.  (This would be the inverse of the above - the "top-down"
approach.)

Lastly, there is pygame.  pygame is a wrapper for a fast and powerful
cross-platform graphics, sound, and input library called SDL.  This
solves a lot of the speed problems, and can be used for some fairly
sophisticated games.  Check http://www.pygame.org/ for more info,
including the project page which has a frequently-updated list of games
in progress with pygame.

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Paul Sidorsky                                          Calgary, Canada
paulsid@shaw.ca                        http://members.shaw.ca/paulsid/