A question...

Tee on 2007/04/30 17:29 of Welcome to World Corporation

I'm not sure if many people are still reading these posts, but I have a question and I figured here would be a nice place to ask.

I only create games when competitions like Pyweek and LD48 are run (though I've never finished a LD48 game), but I'd like to do it more often. The problem that I never seem to be motivated and/or find time to do them, because other life issues always have a higher precendence. It seems different when I'm on Pyweek, though, because I feel motivated to put aside other things just to make a game. Maybe because I know others will play and talk about it, I don't know. I really enjoy creating games and I wish I would be motivated more often than twice a year (although it's a great start, thanks to Pyweek :)).

A few days after Pyweek ended, I was talking to eugman about it and he thought maybe if I joined some community of game developers I would be more motivated to create games. Recently I was thinking about it. Perhaps it would help. Does anyone know a good community like this? Here's what I'm thinking about:

• Others test your games and review them, giving you suggestions and constructive criticism. You can test their games as well.
  
  
• Friendly. This is pretty obvious, and the most important. No people who are there just to annoy, troll, flame, or give unconstructive criticism (like just saying "This game sucks!" and nothing more). This is why I would prefer small communities rather than big; (statistically speaking) in bigger communities there are more people like this.
  
  
• Helpful. If you have some problems with your game, people can help and contribute with ideas.
  
  
• No commitment. Although I want to create games more often, other life issues are still more important. Maybe what I mean by this is to be able to participate in a passive way, like not having to check the site all the time and instead receive news and links to games to test on feeds or email. But, with time, if I like the community, I'd contribute more and be more active.
  
  
• Not just a forum, but a place where you can start projects, add blog posts related to the project, and post the game there. A structure similar to Pyweek.
  
  

Fine, I'm basically thinking of Pyweek without the problem of being twice a year. :)

So, does anyone know a community of game developers that attend these characteristics?

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Comments

Tee on 2007/04/30 18:16:

Ah, a second question to those who know python very well (this probably isn't the best place to ask but I don't think it hurts to ask).

How feasible is it to make a program that turns a python pygame game into something playable in a browser (like Flash or a Java applet)? Is it even possible?

HanClinto on 2007/05/01 19:23:

Hey, Tee!

Regarding your first question, one thing that may or may not pan out for you is the Experimental Gameplay Project.

As far as your second question, I know that IG Loader could probably work with a py2exe'd pygame program, but I don't know enough about browser plugins to know what it would take to make a wrapper for Pygame that ran in a browser. Great idea though! I'm interested in knowing what other people think of the feasibility of such a thing.

And yeah, I don't know how many people still read these posts either, but I know I check back frequently. :)

Tee on 2007/05/01 23:10:

Thanks, HanClinto.

Looks interesting. I had seen Experimental Gameplay Project before, but I didn't notice what it was. But I think it's a bit too big for me to keep up with. And the site seems buggy. For some reason on the sign up page the link to terms and conditions won't load (I know it's probably harmless, but I can't agree to something I can't even look at...), and the link to the terms at the bottom of the main page leads me to a 404 Not Found. Also, when I try to read comments on games I get a 'bad comment mode onobject 0 10' for some reason.

igLoader is quite expensive, and I don't need it for anything serious. I was just wondering if it's possible to build one. I would spend time on it if I find it's feasible. I'll have to do some research. I found some posts [1 2] on the subject, but I'm not sure it helps much. Googling around I haven't found anyone who's actually working on something like this, either.

viblo on 2007/05/02 20:17:

Maybe using Jython together with a javaGame library that is jythonified is the easiest way to do something like that?

Tee on 2007/05/04 19:35:

Thanks for the idea, but apparently that's not possible. Not without pygame-ctypes at least, but it says it's under development or experimental.

viblo on 2007/05/04 23:57:

Ah, I meant that you should use one of the game libraries already available for Java (and just wrap it a little to make it fell pythonic).