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TUTORIAL:Creating a Standalone Windows Executable
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<title>Pygame Tutorials - Creating Windows Executables</title>
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<h1 align=center><font size=-1>Pygame Tutorials</font><br>Windows Executables</h1>
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<h2 align=center>by Pete Shinners<br><font size=-1>pete@shinners.org</font></h2>
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<h3 align=center>Revision 1.2, January 28th, 2002</h3>
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One drawback to creating your game with <b>pygame</b> is the large amount of
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dependencies that your game requires. In order for people to play your game,
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they need a lot of libraries installed. For unix users, this isn't too bad,
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since most unix distributions come with their own package and dependency
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management system. On Windows there is nothing like this, and it is more
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difficult for a Windows user to just download your python source and run your
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The best solution is to create a collection of all the needed files for your
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game to run. With python this can mean a lot of files. This document will show
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you the tools you need to create a standalone version of your game. It is not
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<br> <br> <br>
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<h2>Download The Tools</h2>
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The first thing you need to do is download the tools to build the executable.
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We will use the excellent <tt>
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PY2EXE</tt> tool. This package extends the distutils to turn your python
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code into an executable. You can grab the latest version from the <tt>
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<a href=http://starship.python.net/crew/theller/py2exe/index.html>PY2EXE</a></tt>
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page. It uses a simple windows installer to manage the installation.
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To use <tt>PY2EXE</tt> you'll need to create a simple distutils script to
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run it. I've created a version of this script that I suggest you use.
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<tt><a href=http://pygame.seul.org/ftp/pygame2exe.py>pygame2exe.py</a></tt>.
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<br> <br> <br>
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<h2>Build the Script</h2>
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There's a small block of variables you will want to change in the <tt>pygame2exe.py</tt>
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script to make it work for your specific game.
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project_name = "aliens" #name for exe
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project_script = "aliens.py" #name of base .PY
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icon_file = "aliens.ico" #name of .ICO
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optimize = 2 #0, 1, or 2; like -O and -OO
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dos_console = 0 #set to 1 to run in a DOS box
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data_directories = ['data'] #used data directories
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extra_modules = [] #any extra modules that are missing
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Most of the options are pretty self descriptive. When first testing your game,
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you'll want to set the <tt>dos_console</tt> value to 1. This will print any
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errors into the dos console. When you release your game, you'll want to set it
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back to 0, so your game can run without opening a dos prompt.
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If you notice your game doesn't run, and get an error about missing modules,
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you can add the names of specific missing modules to the list named <tt>
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extra_modules</tt>. For example, if your game uses the surfarray module,
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surfarray depends on the Numeric modules, but sometimes it can be difficult for
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<tt>PY2EXE</tt> to detect Numeric as a dependency. You can add the missing Numeric
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modules to this list and everything will be ok.
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Once you are all setup, simply run this script and it will do all the work.
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The final executable and DLLs will be placed inside a project directory, which
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will be inside a directory named "<tt>dist</tt>".
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You'll notice there aren't any .PY source files in the final directory. That is
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because all the needed python source has been compressed as bytecode into the
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actual executable file.
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The <tt>icon_file</tt> variable is an optional name of a .ICO file to use
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for the executable. You can leave it empty ("") and it will be ignored.
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Also be warned the icon_file doesn't work too well, especially on windows9x.
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The <tt>data_directories</tt> is a list of paths that will be copies into
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the final game directory. Since most games out there will require some
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sort of graphics/sound/font resources, this will help copy them into the
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You'll need to doublecheck that all the game resources and files got copied
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into the final directory in the "dist" folder. Once that is done and the game
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is working, you can compress the entire directory into a .ZIP file and send it
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to all your friends. They do not need any versions of python or SDL installed on
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their machines. Even if they have older versions of python </i>(like version
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1.5.2)</i>, it will not interfere with your game.
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You can also safely pick through the final game directory, and remove any
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of the "PYD" files that you don't expect your game to use. for example, if
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you don't use joysticks in your game, you can remove the "joystick.pyd"
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to make your game size a little smaller.
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<br> <br> <br>
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<h2>Creating an Actual Installer</h2>
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There's nothing wrong with distributing your game in a .ZIP file. But it is
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usually a lot nicer to create an installer executable so the game can
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automatically decompress itself, as well as setup Start Menu icons and adding
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an option to uninstall. For this you'll need to use one of the many available
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installing tools for windows. There are many free ones to choose from, and there
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are several high quality ones.
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I can recommend <a href=http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.htm>INNO Setup</a>
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for creating the install tool, and <a href=http://www.bhenden.org/istool>
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ISTool</a> for configuring the package. These are both of the utilities I use
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when creating the installable pygame package for windows.
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