Hi, I've been working on plans to make distributing games easier. So people can more easily let their friends and families play games they have made.
Part of this plan is to make binary creation easier(zip files containing your game for each platform specifically). The current situation is that people need to get py2exe py2app, cx_freeze and other modules setup, and working in their setup.py file. Then they have to adjust things for how their game works, and then get access to every platform. Unfortunately each of these things changes occasionally, so old setup.py files do not work for other people. This results in people not making binaries for every platform, and makes it hard to share games with your friends and family. So the plan is to make our lives easier creating distibutables for every release of some game we make. Basic idea: =========== To be able to copy your game into a directory for each platform and your job be done. `cp -r YOUR_BITCHIN_GAME game_launcher_macosx/games/` `cp -r YOUR_BITCHIN_GAME game_launcher_win_x86/games/` etc... Then you can zip up that directory and send it to a friend. There will be a python module available to automate this stuff. Make a game_launcher package for each platform. =============================================== Where this bundle would be something like: - game_launcher_macosx - game_launcher_linux_x64 - game_launcher_linux_x86 - game_launcher_linux_arm - game_launcher_win_x86 - game_launcher_win_x64 - game_launcher_win_symbian That is have a directory with binaries for each platform. Then you can easily make your game work for that platform by copying your game files into a directory like this: `cp -r YOUR_BITCHIN_GAME game_launcher_macosx/games/` Your game would have to have a run_game.py script which calls your games main function and starts up. Libs. ===== Most commonly used python game libs would be included (numpy, pyopengl, pyaudio, PIL etc). These generic bundles would have many of the common modules used for making games included. You can just copy in any other libs you need. If the module requires platform specific code, then that can either be made independantly or otherwise. It would allow people to create 'game_launchers' for various platforms. Automating distributable generation. ==================================== This would just involve some scripts to copy your game files to the game_launcher directory This would be a library, like: pygame_distribute.make(my_game_path, output_path) Or it could be a distutils command part of peoples setup.py scripts... python setup.py pygame_distribute (which would copy the distributables into dist/) I don't think it should come with pygame, since it would be quite large... like easily 200MB for many platforms. With extra config it should be possible to upload releases as well. What about debian, rpm, macports, archlinux, other distros? ============================================ We should be able to make this easier somehow. For example, arch linux, and macports just require a text file with a link to the source, and a few dependencies listed. Although creating packages for these systems is not the initial aim, it would be good to consider them. How can this work with symbian? Any ideas Jussi? I'm not sure it will work, as apps need to be signed I think. Or maybe there is someway around that for use on your own devices maybe. What does it give us? ===================== This would let people make distributables for their games on multiple platforms without being on those platforms. As an example, to make windows binaries without being on windows. No python dependency. People will not have to download python and install it to play your games. What does this plan not do well? ================================ It won't make installers for all platforms. The idea is to create a zip folder if possible for each platform, or an installer for platform that does not require running on the target platform. It should be possible to make packages for some platforms without being on those platforms too. Most suitable for open source games. This is because the source code will be more easily obtainable than using something like py2exe. However games can still be commercial, and release the source code. However commercial games may need to use another solution (or pay someone to have a solution made for them). Why not distutils, py2exe, cx_freeze? ============================ We will use it to create each launcher on each platform. However distutils does not work to create distributables on each platform. eg, I can not create osx binaries from linux with distutils. This way is more robust, as the launcher can be made and tested once. Then reused by many people on every platform. Is this a launcher/player? ========================== No. Also yes. The idea will be to create distributables for your own games. The launchers will not be generic pygame players - where you download many different pygame games to play on the launcher. The launchers will make it easier for work to be distributed and tested easily. However they will be to make separate game distributables, not to share games in one launcher. Although a pygame player is not the aim, it could be an extension in the future. There have been many attempts at creating pygame players in the past, and none have been too successful - so making a pygame player is an anti-goal (for now). Instead we will concentrate on making a library, and folders for simplistic distribution. Status ====== In planning and prototyping so far. Looking for ideas. I have a working setup.py script for win, linux x86, and osx for some games - like many games have since 2004 or so. These would be changed to make game_launcher_* directories. A python module with hundreds of megs of data would be made available. Also platform specific launchers could be gotten. This will allow separate maintainers to upload launchers for different platforms. I hope to try out a prototype for the coming ludumdare.com 48h competition this weekend. Hopefully other people using pygame for the competition will be able to help test it out this weekend too. Once generating zip files/binaries is completed ok, then other factors for distribution can be discussed. Thoughts?
