PyWeek

[pekuja]

Here's something you might want to check out: http://www.pyweek.org/ (for the games, click on "PyWeek1" and "PyWeek2", the first and second competitions). It's a competition where the goal is to make a game using the Python programming lanuage in exactly one week. The competition has just ended and the participants will vote for the best games during the next two weeks. Like I said, all of the games are written in Python, so they all run on Linux. Well, if there are no filename problems. Some Windows programmers tend to forget case-sensitivity.
I think this sort of thing is nice for Linux gaming, because it produces plenty of new games in a short period of time. Some of these games are really good and many will be improved upon after the competition too. The competition has been run two times now, and apparently they're going to run a third one again in about six months.
This is a chance to see some upcoming cool Linux games before they get famous! ;-)

[CptnObvious999]

This is really great. Thanks for pointing this out.

Python is my favorite programming language and I was looking for a great 3d game engine that supports blender models (supporting at least 75% of the blender format features such as armatures and animation). I have found 2 that I have found interesting that are not too early in development. One is PyOgre and the other is the builtin blender game engine. Unfortunatly I think the blender game engine requires you to have blender installed (maybe even running) to use it and I don't want to have my game require a 3d modeler/animation program to be installed just to play it. PyOgre seems pretty good although I am not sure how well it supports blender files yet and it uses python binding so it isn't made specifically for python which means the API might not be as powerfull as if it were just for python and it could be slower too. I have also tried to install Panda3d but I havn't had much luck with it.

I hope more games are developed in Python because it makes development easier, crossplatform, and more efficient (and I love Python )

EDIT: Did you make Trip on the Funny Boat? Thats pretty sweet. I would love to do something like that but I havn't had a lot of motivation yet.

[pekuja]

PyOgre is probably pretty good, although it's a pain in the buttocks to install, because there aren't really any binary packages available for Linux distros. There was one game in the competition using PyOgre that's called Steamech by Team Landshark, but my meager video card (Intel 855GM) couldn't really handle it for whatever reason. Perhaps their textures were oversized or something.
Our team did indeed make Trip on the Funny Boat, which you can get here: <shameless-plug>http://www.pyweek.org/e/Pekuja/</shameless-plug>. I did most of the coding, while my two friends Hectigo and JDruid did graphics and music. I'm glad you liked the game. :-)
Python is a great language for game development and other things. Sometimes I was astonished when my code actually worked right after I wrote it with not even syntax errors to be seen. ;-) If you have trouble with the motivation, you should probably take part in a competition like this one. There are some other ones too, like the Ludum Dare 48h competition at http://www.ludumdare.com/, although I think PyWeek is the only one centered around Python (or Linux). The competition motivates you and you have a deadline, so even if your motivation drops, you know that there's just a couple of more days to go, so you can still fight your way through some more code and have a working game by the end of the week. :-)

[CptnObvious999]

Thanks for all the info. I think I should get a little more experience before jumping into one of those projects plus I have school and a (small) social life (plus LaGER) which take up a lot of time. This is a great contest, especially since all the projects are under free liceanses so after its done people can build upon the project and make it even better.

BTW what IDE do you use? I have found only two that really I like: PyDev (a plugin for Eclipse) and SPE, both of which support autocompletion and have a very nice interface although I am using SPE more since it is made specifically for Python.

[pekuja]

BTW what IDE do you use? I have found only two that really I like: PyDev (a plugin for Eclipse) and SPE, both of which support autocompletion and have a very nice interface although I am using SPE more since it is made specifically for Python.

Well... I don't use an IDE. I just write my code in Vim. During the competition I was running it in a Gnome Terminal with several tabs open, which was quite handy, so I could have a couple of editing tabs and one for testing. I should probably learn how to use the Python debugger and profiler too, but I haven't got around to doing that yet.

[mrben]

I'm also a Vim user, but I recently discovered PIDA, which wraps a project management interface around Vim - definitely worth a look

[CptnObvious999]

I'm also a Vim user, but I recently discovered PIDA, which wraps a project management interface around Vim - definitely worth a look

Yeah I like Vim but it is much easier for me to use a GUI interface for development. I only use Vim for small text editing (mainly stuff that would benifit from sytax highlighting since I use Nano more since its easier for me) so I am not that proficient with it.