PyCon CA 2016 – The Art of Writing Wargames in Python with Kivy

Intro

Last year in November, I presented a talk about Kivy at PyCon Canada 2016. I talked about my experiences working with Kivy in the context of writing a strategy game. I discussed the various UI frameworks available to a Python developer, and why Kivy is currently the best choices for UIs in Python. Especially if you are interested in making a cross-platform app or game.

Video

Links

Abstract

Many of us got our start in programming, by building games and simple apps. However creating interesting games and UIs in Python was not a simple task especially for multiple platforms. Kivy, a cross-platform Python UI app framework changes all that. This talk discusses the journey of working with Kivy to develop a moderately complex strategy game. It also contrasts to using other platforms

Reaction

Overall, the talk went better than I expected. The audience was engaged and interested. There was a few technical difficulties, namely I had to resort to using my phone as a wifi hotspot to run my presentation rather than Ryerson University’s wifi. Also there was a noticeable delay between when I changed slides on my presentation notes, and the projected display. This kind of delay is probably the only downside of using slides.com this time around. Having a local copy would of worked better, which I will do so in the future.

Also I wish I had more time to come up with a better demo for the presentation. However even after the sprints, the hex grid layout still plagues my Kivy app. In hindsight, I probably should of worked on a simpler app. Also some folks were turned off by the use of wargames, rather general games. But you know, you learn from your mistakes.

Finally I got quite a few questions, and people are genuinely interested in checking out Kivy. Which ultimately was what I was trying to achieve with this talk.

Encrypt All the Things!

This week has been a rough one for me, so I’ll keep this blog entry short.

However I am pleased to announce that after a bit of struggle, I have setup HTTPS on all my sites, including this one. Thanks to Let’s Encrypt and specifically the acme-nginx project to making that possible. Getting everything setup, and automated using Ansible took a bit of work, but in the end it was worth it.

In the future I am looking forward to using the new more secure TLS 1.3 standard once it is supported more widely by NGINX and various browsers.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2017!

Hey Readers,

Sorry for the delay between posts. I went on an unannounced hiatus, just because of the busyness of last year. However I am back, and I will return to my regular posting schedule of once a week, most likely either Wednesday or Thursday morning.

Also I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas (or has if you’re celebrating the 12 days of Christmas), and I hope your New Year is happy, bright and full of promise!

— Dorian