Examples of PyWeek web games that worked?

scotfree on 2011/09/10 06:25

My first PyWeek - I'd like to do a multiplayer webgame, but want to make sure it's not a nightmare for people to deploy and run themselves. I'm curious if anyone can suggest past entries which "worked", in the sense that people seemed able to set them up.

Thanks if you have any examples, positive or negative. Just pondering what technologies and deployments are in scope for PyWeek.

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Comments

saluk on 2011/09/10 06:41:

Host it yourself and stay there 24/7 in case someone wants to play and no one else is currently playing :P I can remember a few examples, but none required another player. There was an isometric mmo that could easily be judged solo, and then I also remember a browser-based game which took place in an office, but it was essentially a hosted single player game.

Always remember that the more dependancies you include, be it depending on multiple players for the fun, or requiring more libraries to be installed, the less people will be able to accurately judge the game. And yes there are people who go around giving bad reviews to a game just because it was too difficult to run.

scotfree on 2011/09/10 07:03:

So people can host their own submissions? I had imagined that one would have to submit everything needed to deploy/run an entire server, but maybe it's possible to just provide the source and let the judges/public play on your own host? 

 That would certainly make things easier!

richard on 2011/09/10 07:19:

You do have to submit the source of your game to the comp, but you can host a version of it so people can play it. Of course you're on your honour to not cheat and edit the game once judging starts ;-)

gcewing on 2011/09/10 07:37:

The only server-based PyWeek game that I've played was the one where you travelled around and traded feathers. I didn't try to set up my own server, so I can't say whether that part would have worked.

The best idea for submitting server code that others can run is probably to make it as self-contained as you can. Maybe build it on BaseHTTPServer in the standard library, rather than relying on some big framework like Django, and have it run as a stand-alone process instead of requiring it to be hooked into Apache.

richard on 2011/09/10 10:54:

Setting up a local server for testing out multiplayer is a tricky proposition though.

Also, there's a bunch of micro-frameworks that can make things a lot easier than the standard library without the heft of Django or other mega-frameworks.

mauve on 2011/09/10 11:48:

Cool, Richard, that's just what I've been looking for for work, where I'm writing an REST/JSON API around a customer database, for internal use.

I spiked Tornado but abandoned it in favour of WebOb and gevent, though really I've been as much concerned about demonstrating other tools like Lettuce, Sphinx and AMQP as developing the application. PyPy support would be cool.

scotfree on 2011/09/10 14:00:

Very helpful everyone, thanks!

 You do have to submit the source of your game to the comp, but you can host a version of it so people can play it.

This is the core thing I needed to know - it means that I can choose my framework without the stress of needing to support an entirely unknown person setting it all up without my help! I do love some of the microframeworks, though Django comes with so many "batteries included" it's tempting for a quick project like this too...in any case, it's nice to know I can make that choice based on what it does, not how well I know how to package it up.

Thanks a ton!