Pygame Examples

Example code used in teaching Python with Pygame.

Contents

• recipes/
  Minimal, focused Pygame examples ("recipes") for specific tasks, such as displaying images, drawing text, and handling timed events. See recipes/README.md for details.

• sprite/
  Reusable sprite classes ( RectSprite, CircleSprite, andImageSprite) and additional related examples. (See also TODO below.)

• tw/
  Transition warning program (tw.py) used, for example, to display a countdown of work time remaining in a classroom. Also an example of a Pygame app.

• mrrectangle.py
  "Mr. Rectangle" game. Complete example that demonstrates importing sprites, a sprite with an image, collision detection, drawing text, setting a window caption, game over/restart logic, and a timer.

• rocketlander.py
  "Rocket Lander" game. Complete example that demonstrates using masks to detect collisions of a CircleSprite with an ImageSprite with an arbitrary shape and transparent background.

• sprite-example.py
  Basic, single-file example of sprite creation, movement with keyboard input, and using a sprite update method.

• sprite-shape-example.py
  Single-file example with circle collision detection using masks.

• pygame-widgets-example.py
  Example of using the pygame-widgets library to add a button and text box to a Pygame window.

• smoketest.py
  This is not as an example itself, but used to smoke test all the examples in this project.

TODO

• Add a music player recipe.
• The idea of CircleSprite, RectSprite, and ImageSprite in the sprite directory is that these could be packaged so learners can use these sprites without having to write a class. I.e., they could add to their code:

import spritefactory

And then:

spritefactory.create.circle_sprite(color, center, radius)

It's intentional that the signature of that function, and even the structure of that whole line, is similar to drawing a circle without using a sprite, so learners can adapt their "non-sprite" code (i.e., pygame.draw.circle(screen, color, center, radius)) to use sprites if that would help with their project. (This assumes there is also a create.py module that is generated containing the create or equivalent class methods for instantiating the various types of sprites.)

Credits

• Rocket image from by Guiseppe Ramos on Vecteezy. Edited to make background transparent and saved as PNG with Photopea. (I usually use Paint.NET for this sort of thing, but thought an online editor might be easier than downloading an app for students just needing to make a quick edit.