Neon Circuit

Neon Circuit is a polished light-bike arena game inspired by classic Tron gameplay, with both local and online multiplayer modes. It is built with Python + Pygame for fast development and easy cross-platform packaging for Windows and Linux.

Features

• 2 to 4 local players on one machine
• Online multiplayer over LAN/Internet (authoritative server + thin clients)
• Continuous forward bike movement with 90° left/right turns
• Solid light trails with instant elimination on collision
• Round-based gameplay with persistent scoreboard
• Retro neon visual style (dark arena + glowing trails/grid)
• Title screen, setup menu, gameplay, and round results flow
• Per-player customization before each round:
  • bike color
  • bike sound profile (Classic Synth / Deep Engine / Arcade Buzz)
• Procedural retro audio for bike hums, menu SFX, collision, and win sounds
• Build script for executable packaging with PyInstaller

Controls

Gameplay turns

• Player 1: A / D
• Player 2: Left Arrow / Right Arrow
• Player 3: J / L
• Player 4: Numpad 4 / Numpad 6

Global

• ESC = Quit (or pause from gameplay into result overlay)

Setup screen

• UP / DOWN = select player row
• LEFT / RIGHT = change selected player color
• Q / E = change selected player sound profile
• [ / ] = change player count (2-4)
• ENTER = start round

Round result screen

• R = replay
• M = return to title
• ESC = quit

Quick Start (Run from Source)

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # Linux
# .venv\Scripts\activate  # Windows PowerShell

pip install -r requirements.txt
python LightBike.py

You can also launch with:

python -m neon_circuit

Online Multiplayer

Run one server and connect 2-4 clients:

# Terminal 1 (host/server)
python server.py --host 0.0.0.0 --port 25565

# Terminal 2+ (each player)
python client.py --host <SERVER_IP> --port 25565

Online controls:

• A/D or Left/Right = queue turn
• S = start round (any connected player can start when 2+ players are present)
• ESC = quit client

Build Executables (Windows and Linux)

Build on each target OS to produce native executables.

One-command build

python build.py

This creates a one-file executable in dist/ named:

• Linux: NeonCircuit-Linux
• Windows: NeonCircuit-Windows.exe

Manual PyInstaller command

python -m PyInstaller --noconfirm --clean --onefile --windowed --name NeonCircuit LightBike.py

Downloadable Builds

To distribute downloadable files:

1. Build on Linux and Windows separately using python build.py.
2. Zip the generated files from dist/.
3. Upload both archives as release assets (e.g., GitHub Releases):
   • NeonCircuit-Linux.zip
   • NeonCircuit-Windows.zip

Project Structure

LightBike/
├── LightBike.py              # Main launcher
├── build.py                  # PyInstaller build helper
├── requirements.txt
├── README.md
├── neon_circuit/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── __main__.py           # python -m neon_circuit entrypoint
│   ├── app.py                # State machine + menus + flow
│   ├── audio.py              # Procedural retro synth/sfx
│   ├── config.py             # Tunables, controls, palettes
│   ├── gameplay.py           # Bike movement, trails, collisions
│   └── rendering.py          # Neon UI + arena drawing helpers
├── server.py                 # Authoritative online multiplayer server
└── client.py                 # Online multiplayer client

Extensibility Notes

The codebase is intentionally modular so you can add:

• AI bots (gameplay.py and app.py player injection)
• Online multiplayer (replace local input layer)
• Multiple arena types (spawn and bounds presets)
• Power-ups and game modes (state + collision hooks)

Technical Choice

Why Pygame?

• Very fast to prototype arcade mechanics
• Excellent keyboard latency for responsive turning gameplay
• Easy packaging into standalone executables with PyInstaller
• Runs reliably on both Windows and Linux with minimal setup