PyRisk

This is a Python engine and interface for building games similar to the 1957 La Conquête du Monde by Albert Lamorisse (of “Le Ballon rouge / The Red Balloon” fame). The game is perhaps better known as Risk, and is produced by Parker Brothers (now a division of Hasbro).

Benefits over other open source implementations:

simple, extensible implementation

play-by-email

Getting PyRisk

PyRisk is available as a Git repository:

$ git clone git://tremily.us/pyrisk.git

The most recent commit is also available as a gzipped tarball at:

http://git.tremily.us/?p=pyrisk.git;a=snapshot;h=HEAD;sf=tgz

Once you get the source, installation is via Docutils:

pyrisk$ python setup.py build
pyrisk$ python setup.py install

Getting started

To setup play-by-email, you’ll have to have some method to redirect appropriate messages into a named pipe. With procmail, that will look something like:

:0
* ^Subject:.*\[PyRisk.*
{
  :0 wc
  /path/to/named/pipe

  :0
  | /bin/echo -e '\000' >> /path/to/named/pipe
}

The echo command appends a NULL byte to the FIFO, which (I think), helps the read() in _get_msg break at the appropriate point.

Once you have the procmail rule setup, just add your EmailPlayers to your game and go:

from pyrisk.base import generate_earth, Player, Engine
from pyrisk.player.email import IncomingEmailDispatcher, \
    OutgoingEmailDispatcher, EmailPlayer
from pyrisk.graphics import WorldRenderer
world = generate_earth()
ied = IncomingEmailDispatcher(fifo_path='/tmp/pyrisk.in')
oed = OutgoingEmailDispatcher(return_address='server@example.com')
wr = WorldRenderer()
players = [EmailPlayer('Alice', 'alice@big.edu', ied, oed, wr),
           EmailPlayer('Bob', 'bob@fish.net', ied, oed, wr),
           Player('Charlie')]
e = Engine(world, players)
e.run()
ied.close()