best python games?

[Dan Stromberg]

On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 7:39 PM, sogeking99 <neilalt300890 at gmail.com> wrote:

> hey guys, what are some of the best games made in python? free games
> really. like pygames stuff. i want to see what python is capable of.
>
> cant see any good one on pygames site really, though they have nothing
> like sort by rating or most downloaded as far as i can tell
> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>


Define "best game"...  This simple two word phrase can mean many different
things to many different people.

I'd say today's dominant "military drill as entertainment" games are a bit
lacking in, well, game theory, even playability.

For a game that has stood the test of time for thousands of years, that's
got both simpler rules and more complex gameplay than western chess, that's
a perfect knowledge battle of two intellects, take a look at Go AKA Weiqi
AKA Baduk.

Some time ago, I put together a pygame interface to the gnugo AI.  It's at
http://stromberg.dnsalias.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/pggo/trunk/?root=svn&sortby=log

Don't judge the quality of the game by the quality of the interface though -
I'm aware the interface has problems with tracebacking on illegal moves
sometimes.  But for sheer depth of gameplay, there's perhaps nothing that
competes with Go.

And don't judge the game by the quality of the gnugo AI either - the game
has a large amount more complexity and depth than gnugo is aware of;
although gnugo is rather impressive as a software project, the problem it's
trying to solve is exceptionally vast.  On the other hand, gnugo can easily
trounce newbies.

BTW, Go makes an excellent proving ground for new AI techniques, because of
its simple rules and emergent complexity.

Oh, and if you try it, watch out: A former coworker once described Go as
"intellectual cocaine".  It can eat up a surprising amount of your time once
you really get into it.  There are people who study it (and little else) for
an entire lifetime without  truly mastering it.

Finally, Go has an excellent handicap system that allows a newbie to play an
expert without horribly distorted gameplay.  This attribute alone makes it
pretty interesting.
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