News - pygame - python game development

News

In support of the internet rebellion against SOPA pygame.org is going hot pink! - Jan 18, 2012

Here is what the Electronic Frontier Foundation has to say about it.

PyGameZine - Nov 20, 2011

Today we are very excited to announce the launch of PyGameZine!

PyGameZine issue 0 is chock full of articles about pygame, and interviews with people using pygame. It was inspired by the magazines that people used to type code out of into their comodore 64s, or z80 spectrums plugged into their TVs. It also draws inspiration from demo discs, and the whole zine movement.

The authors are pygame contributors and developers. We would like to try and fund some pygame open source/FOSS development, and pay for things like server hosting fees. So if you like, you can choose how much you would like to support pygame.

Please direct media inquiries to pygame@pygamezine.com. We also need help publicizing PyGameZine, so we'd appreciate help with that by doing things like tweeting about it, or posting about it on blogs/forums/mailing lists. Thanks!

Ludumdare and PyWeek finished. - Sep 19, 2011

The PyWeek and Ludumdare game development competitions are finished.

The Ludumdare competition had a massive 599 finished entries this time. The voting has finished now, so go check out the winners.

PyWeek had 110 finished entries, and voting has just began. So it is time to play the entries and vote on them (if you submitted a game yourself).

Congratulations to anyone who participated in either of the game jams.

pygame sprint at pyconuk, and virtually. Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th of September - Sep 15, 2011

There is going to be a virtual sprint, combined with a real life pygame sprint in the uk. What that means, is a weekend of hacking on pygame. More details here if you want to join in.

Pygame issues and version control migrated to bitbucket and mercurial - Sep 8, 2011

We've entered the tenties, and moved over to one of pythons favourite version control systems mercurial. This is hosted by the kind folks over at bitbucket. Big thanks to seul.org who have previously hosted our subversion and even cvs version control accounts.

Here is the pygame bitbucket page: https://bitbucket.org/pygame/pygame. This should make it easier to administer, and also for external developers to collaborate more. So if you've been thinking about hacking on pygame - now is your chance!

We've also migrated our bug tracking from bugzilla to bitbucket issues. Thanks to James Paige, who has been running our bugzilla over the years. We have converted all of the bugs into issues - and given them a little bit of attention whilst we were at it too.

The new url for pygame issues is here: https://bitbucket.org/pygame/pygame/issues

To see more information about the migration please see the mailing list or see this migration issue.

Pyweek 13. Sunday the 11th of September to Sunday the 19th of September - Sep 2, 2011

The 13th Python Game Programming Challenge (PyWeek) is coming. It'll run from Sunday the 11th of September to Sunday the 19th of September.

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!)

pyconuk 24th, 25th of September. - Aug 27, 2011

http://pyconuk.org/ is a small community run conference in Conventry a couple of hours from London. There are 200 tickets this year. pyconuk runs from the 24th to the 25th of September 2011.

"This year's theme is 'Python in depth'".

"The UK's official Python conference returns. It is aimed at everyone in the Python community, of all skill levels, from beginners to core developers."

Ludumdare 48h on this weekend. I'm in. - Aug 18, 2011

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ <~-,. it's all there. ♥

New comments for projects. - Apr 29, 2011

There is a new commenting system for projects. It uses the disqus engine, which is a super pro commenting system (written in python too!). Now you can make comments without logging into pygame.org, it handles spam, it does gravitars, aggregates comments from websites like reddit, HN, and others. It also does 'link backs' and other cool made up nonsense. One cool thing is that you can get emails when someone comments on your project. So it helps you discussion of your projects with people. So if you want to get emailed when someone writes about your project... well now you can!

The old commenting system is still there below the disquss ones, so nothing is lost. You can also still post a comment with your pygame.org account if you want. The best thing is now people don't have to log in to post a comment anymore. "Many times in the past I have wanted to make a comment but just didn't put the effort into registering".

Hope you like it!

pygame has a Twitter account @pygame_org - Apr 29, 2011

http://twitter.com/pygame_org

If you want to hear tweets from our snakey with the controller stuck in its mouth follow @pygame_org. It might also mention pygame related 'news' by retweeting stuff you people write about pygame. ~~#winning~~ #wedding!

If you are reading this, you are using the new webserver - Apr 18, 2011

Testing. Testing. 1, 2, 3. Echo. Echo.

We've migrated pygame.org to a new webserver. Subversion, and mailing lists are still at the seul servers. I hope everything is working ok.

Welcome.

April and May Game making jams! Pyweek and Ludumdare 48h. - Mar 10, 2011

Two game development "competitions" popular amongst the participate in are happening in April/May. Ludumdare 48h (from scratch, solo competition using any language) and Pyweek (one week, solo or teams, using python). Both are not about prizes, but are about a creative outlet for heaps of people making games at once around the world.

Ludum Dare 20 - April 29th-May 2nd Weekend

Find out more about Ludum Dare - "Ludum Dare is a regular accelerated game development Event. Participants develop games from scratch in a weekend, based on a theme suggested by community."

Pyweek 12 - April 3rd-April 10th

Find out more about PyWeek - "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. May inspire new projects (with ready made teams!)"

Whats new with Pygame - Feb 24, 2011

Pygame has passed revision 3000 (**) in SVN! So what has changed. I have spent some time adding array struct interface support to pygame.mixer.Sound and pygame.Surface objects. For those unfamiliar with the array interface, it is a protocol designed by the NumPy people that describes an object's internal data as an array. Unlike the new buffer protocol introduced in Python 3, the array protocol is stable and is supported by NumPy in Python's 2.4 and 2.5. pygame.surfarray.blit_surface has used the array interface for awhile now.

Also added is the new pixelcopy module, which also works on array interfaces, and moves most of the Python code for handling NumPy in surfarray into C. This should provide some of the speedup that has been promised since the release of Pygame 1.9.0. It also adds new functionality, such as pixels_red, pixels_green, and pixels_blue to surfarray. The module is still being developed, but it fully implements existing surfarray functionality.

So if anyone is serious about using NumPy in their projects, please give the latest Pygame from SVN a try. I could use the feedback.

Lenard Lindstrom

(**) bb8 hex, 101110111000 binary, 149A base 13, ... (Okay, so it is meaningless in an of itself.)