im trying to make a snake style game as a test to see how good ti-python is but i dont seem to have any way of input that works from anything but REPL (stdin.readline(x) only works in REPL for me)

As far I know, TI's Python intentionally lacks non-blocking input precisely because it could be used to make games. I can only assume this is because teachers told TI that they want students to find programming to be boring and painful.

dang

i wonder if anyone has tried to make their own modules for ti python, and i wonder how i could do that..

It's possible, but it requires patching the Python app. There's a pretty good chance that would prompt TI to become very aggressive about stopping arTIfiCE. Unfortunately, TI doesn't like engaging with the community, so we can't simply ask; we have to guess and see what happens.

(From a business perspective, students aren't customers; the customers are teachers, and students are merely the poor schmucks with the wallet. After all, if the teacher says it's required for the class, you're probably going to buy it whether or not you think a better alterative is available. This is also why calculators are so expensive: demand for the product is not created by the people paying for it, allowing insanely high profit margins.)

You can make your own modules using tipycomp, but unfortunately, it's not sufficient to just create a Python module, you also have to modify the app to report which key is pressed to the Python coprocessor.
I've made a patch for the app, and getting the currently pressed key is one of the features I tested; however, the patch is not even remotely ready for release, as it frequently causes freezes and hangs. I also want to make sure that the app has some features that are useful for educational purposes before release, so that it doesn't get immediately shot down by TI for having the slightest sense of fun allowing the creation of playable games.

"You're here to learn, not have fun!"---everybody's most-hated math teacher, who's unfortunately probably tenured

well, zork clone here i come..?