[pygame] Stars! Clone

[Kris Schnee <kschnee@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I was thinking about the good old game "Stars!", a "4X" space strategy 
game. The basic rules are so simple and elegant that I played around a 
bit and wrote a clone of some of them:
http://kschnee.xepher.net/code/shinystars.py.txt
For the sake of assigning random planet names I threw in mana.py, a 
little Polynesian-style name generator designed for something else:
http://kschnee.xepher.net/code/mana.py.txt

This code, as it stands, creates a 200x200 Pygame window with 
color-coded dots representing planets and ships. There are two 
"factions" with their own stats, and the planets can calculate 
population growth, mineral harvests, and factory production.

Several groups have proposed making a sequel to or spinoff of Stars!; it 
probably wouldn't be hard to copy the basic design in Python. The 
original had very simple graphics, so Pygame could easily exceed them, 
and was a sedate turn-based game suitable for e-mail play, so there's no 
need for fancy animation.

Kris