Skip to content

repod

repod

Networking library for multiplayer games in Python.

repod is designed to make it easy to write multiplayer games in Python. It uses asyncio and msgpack to asynchronously serialize network events and arbitrary data structures, and delivers them to your high-level classes through simple callback methods.

It is a modernized fork of PodSixNet. Same ideas -- channels, action-based message dispatch, synchronous pump loops -- but rebuilt from scratch for Python 3.12+ with async I/O, binary msgpack serialization, and full type annotations.

Source Code: https://github.com/Walkercito/repod

Quick start

from repod import Channel, Server

class ClientChannel(Channel):
    def Network_message(self, data: dict) -> None:
        print(data)

class MyServer(Server):
    channel_class = ClientChannel

MyServer(host="0.0.0.0", port=5071).launch()

import time
from repod import ConnectionListener

class MyClient(ConnectionListener):
    def Network_connected(self, data: dict) -> None:
        print("connected!")

    def Network_message(self, data: dict) -> None:
        print(data)

client = MyClient()
client.connect("localhost", 5071)

while True:
    client.pump()
    time.sleep(0.01)

Features

  • Simple API -- send dicts, receive dicts. Network_{action} method dispatch.
  • asyncio under the hood, but you never touch it. launch() and pump() handle everything.
  • msgpack with length-prefix framing -- fast, compact, binary-safe.
  • Full type annotations with optional PEP 695 generics.
  • Works with any game framework -- pygame, raylib, arcade, pyglet. Just call pump() in your loop.
  • Python 3.12+ only. No compatibility shims.

Why not PodSixNet?

PodSixNet was great for its time, but:

  • It's built on asyncore, which was removed in Python 3.12
  • It uses rencode / custom delimiter-based framing, which is fragile with binary data
  • It has no type annotations, no modern tooling support
  • It is no longer maintained

repod keeps the same simple API philosophy but replaces the internals with modern Python.