PySpaceWar is an open-source game, loosely inspired by Spacewar, Gravity Wars, and a bit by Star Control (I and II).
Two ships duel in a gravity field. Gravity doesn't affect the ships themselves (which have spanking new anti-gravity devices), but it affects missiles launced by the ships.
You can play against the computer, or two players can play with one keyboard. There is also a Gravity Wars mode, where the two ships do not move, and the players repeatedly specify the direction and velocity of their missiles.
September 17, 2016: Released version 1.0.0:
February 10, 2016: Released version 0.9.8:
March 8, 2010: Released version 0.9.7:
The latest release is 1.0.0. You can download it from the Python Package Index.
Dependencies that you have to install before you can play:
I would appreciate it if someone could build Windows or Mac OS X packages.
You can also check out the latest version from Github:
git clone https://github.com/mgedmin/pyspacewar
Download the game, and make sure you have all the dependencies installed (Python, PyGame). Unpack the tarball or zip file, and run pyspacewar. There is no need to compile anything.
| Player 1 (white) | |
|---|---|
| LEFT, RIGHT | rotate |
| UP | accelerate in the direction you're facing |
| DOWN | accelerate in the opposite direction |
| RCTRL | launch a missile |
| RALT | brake (lose 5% speed) |
| 1 | enable/disable computer control |
| Player 2 (green) | |
| A, D | rotate |
| W | accelerate in the direction you're facing |
| S | accelerate in the opposite direction |
| LCTRL | launch a missile |
| LALT | brake (lose 5% speed) |
| 2 | enable/disable computer control |
| Other | |
| F | toggle full-screen mode |
| ALT+ENTER | toggle full-screen mode |
| O | hide/show missile orbit trails (speeds up drawing) |
| PAUSE | pause the game (useful for taking screenshots) |
| ESC | escape to menu |
| F12 | show frame rate and a bunch of timings for optimisation work |
| +, - | zoom in/out |
| mouse wheel | zoom in/out |
| left click | escape to menu |
| right drag | drag the viewport around |
PySpaceWar was written by Marius Gedminas (physics, graphics) and Ignas Mikalajūnas (AI). It is released under the terms of the GNU GPL.
Planet images are borrowed from an open-source on-line strategy game IGE - Outer Space.
The background image is a darkened version of a public domain Hubble Space Telescope picture of the NGC 3949 galaxy.
Icons were contributed by Jakub Szypulka and licenced under the Creative Commons Share-Alike 3.0 licence.
Report bugs on Github.