Py2exe'ing Games

HanClinto on 2008/09/19 06:07 of Team R.E.X.

RegExExpress 1.3 EXE.zip 3.45mb

Thanks to Eugman for the encouragement, we've now made an EXE package of our game. Part of the reason why it took so long is because we were having trouble getting our data to package correctly in the library.zip that was being created with some of the other py2exe scripts floating around. So with reluctance, I dug out my old Skellington py2exe script, and surprisingly, it worked like a champ on the first try! If you're having trouble packaging up your game, please give this a shot and download my Skellington-specific py2exe script. Just put the unzipped files (the .py and .ico files) directly into your gamelib directory and then run it -- it will walk you through the rest.

SkellingtonSetup_ExtractIntoLibDirectory.zip 2.1k

I'm interested in feedback if this works for people -- if we have enough success with it, we might want to consider putting this as a setup.py into the next revision of the Skellington -- though if we're going to do that, I'd perhaps like to expand for py2app as well.

Cheers!

--clint

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Comments

eugman on 2008/09/19 10:54:

I glad to hear it. My brother thought this looked really cool but he doesn't run python. Thanks a lot. Now you just need to figure out how to fix it so you can run it in curses and then I can play it over ssh(I have so few games I can do that with and I've beaten cursed phoenix to death.)

dmoisset on 2008/09/19 13:24:

@eugman: not a pyweek game, but have you beaten nethack to death? it is like cursed phoenix to the Nth power :)

eugman on 2008/09/19 18:08:

@dmoisset, heh, nethack is toomuch for me. I want simple stuff.

HanClinto on 2008/09/19 19:59:

@eugman: It should work under curses with just a little modification -- for nearly the whole contest, I was keeping all Pygame references in cursesemu.py -- it was only on the last day when I added the animated train that I needed to have a Pygame reference (for the high-performance clock timer). I haven't run the game under curses lately, and while I think there are probably a few glitches, the first step would be to change the top of ui.py, where it says: 

import cursesemu as curses
to 
import curses
That should be the start of a Curses port -- maintaining pure terminal support is something that I kept up for a good chunk of the development, and I'm very interested in going back and re-adding this support for any future releases of this game.

While we're on the topic of roguelike recommendations -- I've played more than my share of Nethack, and thoroughly enjoy the game. If you want a simpler roguelike, I can't help but recommend one of my favorite 7DRLs, named Savescummer -- they don't get much simpler than that. :-D

claxo on 2008/09/19 20:51:

@HanClinto: FYI in keyboards where '^' is a mute key, you cant type '^' ( spanish is one, probably other europeans kbds).
I workarounded by redefining '#' to be taken as '^' in ui.py, onKeyHit. Surely they are more clean ways to handle this.

When rating your team game, I included suggestions in the comments, one of wich I want to repeat here to see if people like it ( and encourages you to add):
Reward the player by showing him/her a small ascii art when it solves a problem( not need to be animated ).

Yes, it is purely eye candy, but I think it would be ubercool!.

HanClinto on 2008/09/19 21:00:

@claxo: That's a really good idea -- thanks for suggesting that. If you look in asciianim.py, there's a definition for a firework animation that I was planning on playing when you do well (more fireworks for doing better). Is that something along the lines of what you're thinking? I was really cramming to get stuff in on the last day, and that was one of the more unfortunate cuts. :-/ Even so, it's very encouraging to hear you suggest that -- it helps us know we were on the right track. :) That was a very good one -- I look forward to hearing your (and others') other suggestions. Thanks!

claxo on 2008/09/19 22:08:

@HanClinto: well, fireworks only when you complete a set ( like all Tutorials ), but more simple, non animated, unique ascii arts, for each problem.
I googled ascii art small, (many hits) and find some likeables by example at
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/small.htm
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/

claxo on 2008/09/19 22:35:

@HanClinto : as an alternative to collect existing art, look from programs that convert images to ascii art.
I found one interesting, free, for windows, (textaizer) at : http://www.mosaizer.com/Textaizer/index.htm
It is not exactly what you need: can produce ascii black & white from image, and can produce color ascii (but the color comes trough html). To get the curses color you can: parse the html (ugh) or calc the color direct from image. The last seems feasible.

Probably theres more programs floating in the net ?