The 23rd Pyweek games programming competition will run from the 19th to 26th of February 2017, from midnight to midnight (UTC).

The Pyweek rules, in short, are:

Develop a game

In Python (mostly, at least!)

As an individual or with a team

In exactly one week (or less!)

From "scratch" - no personal codebases, only public, documented libraries

On a theme that is selected by vote, announced at the moment the contest starts.

Python has great libraries for programming games, both 2D and 3D, and the flexibility of the language means you can achieve a lot in just 7 days. Pyweek is open to programmers of all ages and experience levels, from anywhere in the world, and it's a great way to challenge yourself and improve your skills.

Games are scored by other entrants, on criteria of fun, production and innovation, and you'll have to think about all three to be in with a chance of winning! It's a free competition though, so your prize is recognition :-)

Here's what you need to do if you want to take part:

Sign up/login at http://www.pyweek.org/, and then "Register an entry" at the top-right. Familiarise yourself with some of the libraries and resources you can use to make games. Join the IRC Channel, #pyweek on Freenode, for discussion and advice. Play some of the previous entries at the Pyweek.org site. Why not post a diary entry (from your entry page), introducing yourself and your team? Put a "save the date" in your calendar! Theme voting starts 2017-02-12, and the competition the week after, 2017-02-19 00:00 UTC.

Have fun, and good luck!