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How to develop a game in Python

Python is the most versatile language, and it makes its presence almost in every field including Web-development, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, GUI Application as well as Game Development.

Python provides a built-in library called pygame, which used to develop the game. Once we understand the basic concepts of Python programming, we can use the pygame library to make games with attractive graphics, suitable animation, and sound.

Pygame is a cross-platform library that is used to design video games. It includes computer graphics and sound libraries to give the standard game experience to the user.

It is developed by Pete Shinners to replace PySDL.

Prerequisites for Pygame

To learn the pygame, we must have an understanding of Python programming language.

Installing Pygame

Open command-line terminal and type the following command to install pygame.

We can also install it through IDE. For further installation guide, visit our complete pygame tutorial (https://www.w3cschoool.com/pygame). Here you will find all the essential pygame explanations.

Simple Pygame Example

Here is the following example of creating a simple pygame window.

     import pygame  
  
pygame.init()  
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((400,500))  
done = False  
  
while not done:  
    for event in pygame.event.get():  
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:  
            done = True  
    pygame.display.flip()  

    

Output:

All graphics will draw in the pygame window.

Let's understand the basic syntax of the above program.

import pygame - It is the module which allows us to work with all function of pygame.

pygame.init() - It is used to initialize all the required modules of the pygame.

pygame.display.set_mode((width, height)) - It is used to resized the window size. It will return the surface object. The surface object is used to perform graphical operations.

pygame.event.get() - It makes the event queue empty. If we do not call it, the window messages will start to pile up and, the game will become unresponsive in the opinion of the operating system.

pygame.QUIT - It is used to dismiss the event when we click on the cross button at the corner of the window.

pygame.display.flip() - It is used to reflect any update to the game. If we make any change then we need to call the display.flip() function.

We can draw any shape to the pygame surface includes adding images, attractive font. Pygame provides many built-in functions to draw the geometrical shape to the screen. These shapes are initial stage of developing a game.

Let's understand the following example of shape drawing to the screen.

Example -

     import pygame  
from math import pi  
pygame.init()  
# size variable is using for set screen size  
size = [400, 300]  
screen = pygame.display.set_mode(size)  
pygame.display.set_caption("Example program to draw geometry")  
# done variable is using as flag   
done = False  
clock = pygame.time.Clock()  
while not done:  
    # clock.tick() limits the while loop to a max of 10 times per second.  
        clock.tick(10)  
  
    for event in pygame.event.get():  # User did something  
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:  # If user clicked on close symbol   
            done = True  # done variable that we are complete, so we exit this loop  
  
    # All drawing code occurs after the for loop and but  
    # inside the main while done==False loop.  
  
    # Clear the default screen background and set the white screen background  
    screen.fill((0, 0, 0))  
  
    # Draw on the screen a green line which is 5 pixels wide.  
    pygame.draw.line(screen, (0, 255, 0), [0, 0], [50, 30], 5)  
    # Draw on the screen a green line which is 5 pixels wide.  
    pygame.draw.lines(screen, (0, 0, 0), False, [[0, 80], [50, 90], [200, 80], [220, 30]], 5)  
  
    # Draw a rectangle outline  
    pygame.draw.rect(screen, (0, 0, 0), [75, 10, 50, 20], 2)  
  
    # Draw a solid rectangle  
    pygame.draw.rect(screen, (0, 0, 0), [150, 10, 50, 20])  
  
    # This draw an ellipse outline, using a rectangle as the outside boundaries  
    pygame.draw.ellipse(screen, (255, 0, 0), [225, 10, 50, 20], 2)  
  
    # This draw a solid ellipse, using a rectangle as the outside boundaries  
    pygame.draw.ellipse(screen, (255, 0, 0), [300, 10, 50, 20])  
  
    # Draw a triangle using the polygon function  
    pygame.draw.polygon(screen, (0, 0, 0), [[100, 100], [0, 200], [200, 200]], 5)  
  
    # This draw a circle  
    pygame.draw.circle(screen, (0, 0, 255), [60, 250], 40)  
  
    # This draw an arc  
    pygame.draw.arc(screen, (0, 0, 0), [210, 75, 150, 125], 0, pi / 2, 2)  
  
    # This function must write after all the other drawing commands.  
    pygame.display.flip()  
  
# Quite the execution when clicking on close  
pygame.quit()  

    

Output:

Explanation -

In the above example, we have drawn different shapes such as triangle, straight-line, rectangle, ellipse, circle, arc, filled circle, and oval. We have used the pygame.draw function according to the shape with suitable arguments.

Example - Developing Snake Game Using Pygame

Program -

     # Snake Tutorial Using Pygame 

import math
import random
import pygame
import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import messagebox


class cube(object):
    rows = 20
    w = 500

    def __init__(self, start, dirnx=1, dirny=0, color=(255, 0, 0)):
        self.pos = start
        self.dirnx = 1
        self.dirny = 0
        self.color = color

    def move(self, dirnx, dirny):
        self.dirnx = dirnx
        self.dirny = dirny
        self.pos = (self.pos[0] + self.dirnx, self.pos[1] + self.dirny)

    def draw(self, surface, eyes=False):
        dis = self.w // self.rows
        i = self.pos[0]
        j = self.pos[1]

        pygame.draw.rect(surface, self.color, (i * dis + 1, j * dis + 1, dis - 2, dis - 2))
        if eyes:
            centre = dis // 2
            radius = 3
            circleMiddle = (i * dis + centre - radius, j * dis + 8)
            circleMiddle2 = (i * dis + dis - radius * 2, j * dis + 8)
            pygame.draw.circle(surface, (0, 0, 0), circleMiddle, radius)
            pygame.draw.circle(surface, (0, 0, 0), circleMiddle2, radius)

# This class is defined for snake design and its movement
class snake(object):
    body = []
    turns = {}

    def __init__(self, color, pos):
        self.color = color
        self.head = cube(pos)
        self.body.append(self.head)
        self.dirnx = 0
        self.dirny = 1

    def move(self):
        for event in pygame.event.get():
            if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
                pygame.quit()

            keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
            # It will manage the keys movement for the snake
            for key in keys:
                if keys[pygame.K_LEFT]:
                    self.dirnx = -1
                    self.dirny = 0
                    self.turns[self.head.pos[:]] = [self.dirnx, self.dirny]

                elif keys[pygame.K_RIGHT]:
                    self.dirnx = 1
                    self.dirny = 0
                    self.turns[self.head.pos[:]] = [self.dirnx, self.dirny]

                elif keys[pygame.K_UP]:
                    self.dirnx = 0
                    self.dirny = -1
                    self.turns[self.head.pos[:]] = [self.dirnx, self.dirny]

                elif keys[pygame.K_DOWN]:
                    self.dirnx = 0
                    self.dirny = 1
                    self.turns[self.head.pos[:]] = [self.dirnx, self.dirny]
        # Snake when hit the boundary wall
        for i, c in enumerate(self.body):
            p = c.pos[:]
            if p in self.turns:
                turn = self.turns[p]
                c.move(turn[0], turn[1])
                if i == len(self.body) - 1:
                    self.turns.pop(p)
            else:
                if c.dirnx == -1 and c.pos[0] <= 0:
                    c.pos = (c.rows - 1, c.pos[1])
                elif c.dirnx == 1 and c.pos[0] >= c.rows - 1:
                    c.pos = (0, c.pos[1])
                elif c.dirny == 1 and c.pos[1] >= c.rows - 1:
                    c.pos = (c.pos[0], 0)
                elif c.dirny == -1 and c.pos[1] <= 0:
                    c.pos = (c.pos[0], c.rows - 1)
                else:
                    c.move(c.dirnx, c.dirny)

    def reset(self, pos):
        self.head = cube(pos)
        self.body = []
        self.body.append(self.head)
        self.turns = {}
        self.dirnx = 0
        self.dirny = 1
# It will add the new cube in snake tail after every successful score
    def addCube(self):
        tail = self.body[-1]
        dx, dy = tail.dirnx, tail.dirny

        if dx == 1 and dy == 0:
            self.body.append(cube((tail.pos[0] - 1, tail.pos[1])))
        elif dx == -1 and dy == 0:
            self.body.append(cube((tail.pos[0] + 1, tail.pos[1])))
        elif dx == 0 and dy == 1:
            self.body.append(cube((tail.pos[0], tail.pos[1] - 1)))
        elif dx == 0 and dy == -1:
            self.body.append(cube((tail.pos[0], tail.pos[1] + 1)))

        self.body[-1].dirnx = dx
        self.body[-1].dirny = dy

    def draw(self, surface):
        for i, c in enumerate(self.body):
            if i == 0:
                c.draw(surface, True)
            else:
                c.draw(surface)


def drawGrid(w, rows, surface):
    sizeBtwn = w // rows

    x = 0
    y = 0
    for l in range(rows):
        x = x + sizeBtwn
        y = y + sizeBtwn
        # draw grid line
        pygame.draw.line(surface, (255, 255, 255), (x, 0), (x, w))
        pygame.draw.line(surface, (255, 255, 255), (0, y), (w, y))

# This class define for draw game surface
def redrawWindow(surface):
    global rows, width, s, snack
    # This is used to grid surface
    surface.fill((0, 0, 0))
    s.draw(surface)
    snack.draw(surface)
    drawGrid(width, rows, surface)
    pygame.display.update()


def randomSnack(rows, item):
    positions = item.body

    while True:
        x = random.randrange(rows)
        y = random.randrange(rows)
        if len(list(filter(lambda z: z.pos == (x, y), positions))) > 0:
            continue
        else:
            break

    return (x, y)

# Using Tkinter function to display message
def message_box(subject, content):
    root = tk.Tk()
    root.attributes("-topmost", True)
    root.withdraw()
    messagebox.showinfo(subject, content)
    try:
        root.destroy()
    except:
        pass

# main() function
def main():
    global width, rows, s, snack
    width = 500
    rows = 20
    win = pygame.display.set_mode((width, width))
    s = snake((255, 0, 0), (10, 10))
    snack = cube(randomSnack(rows, s), color=(0, 255, 0))
    flag = True

    clock = pygame.time.Clock()

    while flag:
        pygame.time.delay(50)
        clock.tick(10)
        s.move()
        if s.body[0].pos == snack.pos:
            s.addCube()
            snack = cube(randomSnack(rows, s), color=(0, 255, 0))

        for x in range(len(s.body)):
            if s.body[x].pos in list(map(lambda z: z.pos, s.body[x + 1:])):
                print('Score: \n', len(s.body))
                message_box('You Lost!\n', 'Play again...\n')
                s.reset((10, 10))
                break

        redrawWindow(win)

    pass


main()

    

Output: