FastAPI

Chapter 18. Games

Preview

Games cover a lot of ground, from simple text to multiplayer 3D extravaganzas. This chapter will demonstrate a simple game and how the web endpoint can interact with the user across multiple steps. This process is different from the familiar one-shot request-response web endpoints that you’ve seen so far.

Python Game Packages

If you really want to get into Python for games, here are some useful tools:

• Text:

  • Adventurelib

• Graphic:

  • PyGame, primer

  • pyglet

  • Python Arcade

  • HARFANG

  • Panda3D

But I’m not going to use any of these in this chapter. The example code can get so large and complex that it overshadows the goal of this book: creating websites—APIs and traditional content—with FastAPI, as simply as possible.

Splitting Game Logic

There are so many ways to write a game. Who does what, and who keeps what where—the client or the server? The web is stateless, so each time the client calls the server, the server is a total amnesiac and swears it’s never seen this client before. So we need to keep state somewhere: data retained across game steps to thread them all together.

We could write a game completely in JavaScript on the client side, and keep all the state there. If you know JavaScript well, that’s a good solution, but if you don’t (a possibility, because you’re reading a Python book), let’s give Python something to do too.

At the other extreme, we could write a server-heavy application: generate some distinct id for this particular ...