// the find
grantjenks/free-python-games
Free Python Games
A collection of classic arcade and puzzle games (Snake, Pacman, Pong, Conway's Life, etc.) implemented in Python using only the standard library's Turtle module. Built specifically for teaching programming to beginners, particularly 6th-12th graders — each game is short enough to read in one sitting and ships with exercises. Not a game engine; not for building production games.
Each game is a single self-contained file with no external dependencies beyond the stdlib, which is genuinely useful in classroom settings where you can't control what's installed. The `copy` command that drops a local editable copy into your working directory is a nice UX touch for the teach-by-modification approach. 100% test coverage on what is essentially untestable GUI code, achieved via a mock Turtle layer in tests/mockturtle.py — worth looking at as a pattern. Installable via pip and pipx, so even a kid who's never used a terminal can get it running with one command.
Turtle is a dead end — once students outgrow these games there's nowhere to go within the same framework, no path to Pygame or Arcade. The last meaningful activity was mid-2024 and the README still lists CPython 3.6 as a target; the project feels maintained-but-not-developed. All games are single-player or two-player-on-one-keyboard; no networked multiplayer or async patterns for students to learn from. The docs reference a curriculum but it's mostly a list of exercises rather than a structured progression, so teachers have to do the scaffolding themselves.