Pygame in the browser for schools
Steve Benton, computing teacher and founder of SubjectHub
Getting Pygame onto school computers means a ticket to IT, a wait, and then a version that works on some machines and not others. By the time it is sorted, the class has lost interest in making a game. So I wanted Pygame in the browser, for schools, with nothing to install.
Real Pygame in the browser, with nothing for schools to install
Pygame Studio runs real Python and real Pygame (pygame-ce) inside the browser. There is nothing for IT to approve, and it works the same on every machine in the room.
We have had a Pygame editor for a while, but it ran on an older engine with real limits. This term I rebuilt it on a newer one.
Picture coming soon
Pygame Studio: the paddle-and-ball starter game running beside its code
What changed, and how I checked it
Pupils now start from one of six starter projects instead of a blank file. When the code goes wrong, an error helper explains the problem. They are not left staring at a raw traceback.
Before it went live, I ran all 70 games pupils had already saved in the old version through the new one. Not one game that worked before stopped working.
It sits alongside Python Studio for ordinary Python, and the rest of what is free to use is on the free tools page.
