Python game coding

[simonwittber at gmail.com]

This article describes a system very similar to my own.

<shameless plug>
The LGT library (http://developer.berlios.de/projects/lgt) provides a
simple, highly tuned  'microthread' implementation using generators. It
is called NanoThreads. It allows a microthread to be paused, resumed,
and killed, but not pickled.

The eventnet module facilitates event-driven programming using a global
dispatcher. It provides a Handler class which functions in a similar
fashion to the Actor described in the article.

We used the above recently, to compete in the pyweek game competition
(http://mechanicalcat.net/tech/PyWeek/1/) under the moniker TeamXerian.
Our boring (but glitzy) game used nanothreads to move, and animate 100
critters at a frame independent rate. Each critter had a thread
controlling movement and frame swapping.

I also created an XML scene loader, which allowed designers on the team
to create a timelined sequence of events, (like a movie script), which
controlled sound and image elements using pre-programmed movement,
rotation, scaling and fading style actions.

If you want to take a peek, you can download a windows exe (17MB) from
here:
http://metaplay.dyndns.org:82/~xerian/Quido.zip
or the source (95k) from here:
http://metaplay.dyndns.org:82/~xerian/Quido_src_only.zip
</shameless plug>

So, forget 'game scripting' in Python, write the whole darn lot in
Python!

Sw.