This is a repository that holds the code for the Summer 2018 intro to python programming for MIT's HSSP program.
This code was developed for Python (version 2.7).
Running the game templates and game example relies on the Pygame library (version 1.9.3) which can be downloaded here.
If you are looking to program without having to install Python on your computer, we recommend using the www.learnpython.org which is an interactive tutorial that covers many of the same topics as we will in the course.
First a reminder on bools. Bools are a variable type that stores one of two values: True or False, with the exact capitalization as shown here. An example:
takes_class = True
loves_code = True
if takes_class and loves_code:
print("Glad you're having fun")
elif takes_class:
print("Hopefully you can learn to like code")
elif loves_code:
print("You should take our class")
else:
print("You should take our class and learn to love code!")We also talked about while loops.
while loops repeat something while their condition is True. For example, this will print hello 10 times.
i = 1
while i <= 10:
print("hello!")
i = i + 1We can also break out of the loop which is often useful in game-style programming, what will this example print?
i = 1
while i <= 10:
print(i)
i = i+1
if i == 5:
break1
2
3
4
It only prints the numbers 1 through 4 because we put a break statement when i gets to 5.
Today we will be learning about pygame. Pygame is a library which you can use to write games in python. Python has a lot of libraries for different purposes. To get a library we have to install it. Once a library is installed, we can tell our code we'll be using that library:
import pygameIf we want to access commands and variables from that library we put pygame in front, for example:
import pygame
pygame.display.set_mode((400,200))This will set up a screen for our game.
We can also import specific parts of the pygame library, for example:
from pygame.locals import *Imports anything from pygame.locals which we will use to import testing key commands.
Using pygame isn't that different from our text adventure game. One difference is that we write our main code in a game loop, which uses while loops and Bools.
import pygame
pygame.init()
while True:
# We will write anything we want to happen in game code here
pygame.display.update() We update the display at the end of our while loop, which tells pygame to redraw our screen with any updates inside our loop In any graphical game, we have a screen, and objects on the screen. In pygame we define these:
import pygame
pygame.init()
# Define the screen
width = 640
height = 460
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((width, height))
screen.fill((255,255,255))
main_clock = pygame.time.Clock()
# Define the player x,y,width,height
player = pygame.Rect(300,400,60,60)
while True:
# We will write anything we want to happen in game code here
screen.fill((255,255,255)) #draw screen
pygame.draw.rect(screen, (0,0,0), player) #draw player
#Ensure constant frames/s
main_clock.tick(50)
pygame.display.update() You'll also notice we have some additional features. The main_clock variable is used to determine our frames/s for display.
Now pygame also has the ability to get commands from the keyboard:
import pygame
import sys
from pygame.locals import *
pygame.init()
# Define the screen
width = 640
height = 460
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((width, height))
screen.fill((255,255,255))
main_clock = pygame.time.Clock()
# Define the player x,y,width,height
player = pygame.Rect(300,400,60,60)
player_speed=3
while True:
# We will write anything we want to happen in game code here
# Commands from keyboard
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == QUIT:
pygame.quit()
sys.exit()
#check for pressing down on a key
if event.type == KEYDOWN:
if event.key == K_LEFT:
player.x -= player_speed
if event.key == K_RIGHT:
player.x += player_speed
screen.fill((255,255,255)) #draw screen
pygame.draw.rect(screen, (0,0,0), player) #draw player
#Ensure constant frames/s
main_clock.tick(50)
pygame.display.update() Using the green button, download this code to your computer. Extract the folder saying yes to all the prompts. Inside the extracted HSSP_Python-master folder, drag the lesson4 folder to the desktop.
Now we have to install pygame.
Find your terminal. It should already be up as a black screen on your computer, if it's not you can search the computer to open it.
Now type into the terminal:
sudo apt-get install python-pygame
Remember that computers are picky, so all the characters should be the exact case and spacing. Now our first goal is to build a simple player controlled by arrow keys.
In the terminal type:
cd ~/Desktop/lesson4
gvim game.py
You should see the code to control a player moving. This is a basic game loop, with a player that you can control with the left and right arrow keys.
We have defined the player as a pygame.Rect which is an object that we can command to move using player.x and player.y We can also get the position of the player on the screen using player.top, player.left, player.right, player.bottom
import pygame
import sys
from pygame.locals import *
pygame.init()
# Define the screen
width = 640
height = 460
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((width, height))
screen.fill((255,255,255))
main_clock = pygame.time.Clock()
# Define the player x,y,width,height
player = pygame.Rect(300,400,60,60)
player_speed=20
while True:
# We will write anything we want to happen in game code here
# Commands from keyboard
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == QUIT:
pygame.quit()
sys.exit()
#check for pressing down on a key
if event.type == KEYDOWN:
if event.key == K_LEFT:
player.x -= player_speed
if event.key == K_RIGHT:
player.x += player_speed
screen.fill((255,255,255)) #draw screen
pygame.draw.rect(screen, (0,0,0), player) #draw player
#Ensure constant frames/s
main_clock.tick(50)
pygame.display.update() Now run the code in the terminal using
python game.py
You should be able to move the box to the left and right on the screen. One thing you will notice is if you hold down on the key, the player doesn't move. There is a way to fix this add the line to the beginning of your code before your game loop but after the imports and pygame.init()
pygame.key.set_repeat(100,50)Now when keys are held down they will generate multiple pygame.KEYDOWN events so we will move.
But now try moving to the left. Eventually our character moves off the screen. How can we fix this? Brainstorm with a neighbor.
Try modifying the code so that our character can't move off the screen.
Here's a hint - think about adding another comparison to the if statements where our player can move so they can't move off the screen.