When it comes to computer games, coding is an essential component. Python game programming has become popular in recent years, particularly with the creation of the arcade library.
In this article, we will explore the basic arcade program, as well as the fundamental concepts of arcade programming.
Background and Setup
If you are interested in computer game development, you should be familiar with Python programming language. Python is a high-level programming language that is easy to learn and use.
It is widely used for web development, scientific computing, and data analysis. However, Python is also an excellent language for game development.
Python game programming is made easy with the arcade library. The arcade library is a modern 2D game development library.
It is an open-source software developed by Paul Vincent Craven. The arcade library is designed to make game development in Python simple and fun.
The arcade library allows developers to create games that run on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Basic Arcade Program
The first thing you need to do to start using the arcade library is to install it. You can install the arcade library using pip.
Once installed, you can start coding in Python. Here is a basic arcade program:
import arcade
def main():
arcade.open_window(500, 500, "My Arcade Game")
arcade.set_background_color(arcade.color.WHITE)
arcade.start_render()
# Draw the sun
arcade.draw_circle_filled(200, 200, 50, arcade.color.YELLOW)
arcade.finish_render()
arcade.run()
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
In this code, we import the arcade library and define the main function. In the main function, we open a window with the title “My Arcade Game” and a size of 500×500 pixels.
We set the background color to white, and we start rendering the game. After that, we draw a circle filled with color yellow to represent the sun.
Then we finish rendering and run the game.
Arcade Concepts
Initialization
When you use the arcade library, it automatically initializes the pyglet_ffmpeg2 and pyglet libraries. Pyglet is an open-source Python library for developing games and other multimedia applications.
Pyglet provides an operating system-independent interface for creating windows, OpenGL contexts, and multimedia input. It also provides access to a large number of multimedia APIs, including video playback, music playback, and sound effects.
Constants and Key Mappings
The arcade library defines several constants that can be used for colors, shapes, and other graphic elements. For example, you can use arcade.color.RED to draw a red shape.
You can also use the arcade.key constants to detect keyboard input. For instance, arcade.key.LEFT is the left arrow key, and arcade.key.RIGHT is the right arrow key.
Windows and Coordinates
In the arcade library, the window is defined as a Cartesian coordinate system with the origin point (0,0) located at the bottom-left corner of the screen. The x-coordinate increases as you move from left to right, and the y-coordinate increases as you move from bottom to top.
Quadrant I, which is the top-right quadrant, is where most games take place.
Drawing
The arcade library provides several drawing functions that you can use to create various shapes, such as circles, rectangles, and lines. You can also use the buffered drawing functions, which allow you to draw many shapes efficiently in batches.
The vertex buffer class provides a way of storing, manipulating, and drawing 2D vertex data.
Object-Oriented Design
The arcade library uses an object-oriented design. The arcade.Window is the parent class for all windows that you create with the arcade library.
When you create a new window, you define its properties in the __init__() function. You can also define a function to be called whenever the window needs to be redrawn with the on_draw() function.
Conclusion
Overall, the arcade library is an excellent choice for developers who want to create games in Python. The library provides an uncomplicated way to build games that work across multiple platforms, giving developers a lot of flexibility.
By using arcade library concepts, you can create engaging and entertaining games that will impress your audience. Whether you’re a seasoned Python programmer or a newcomer to game development, you’ll find that the arcade library is an excellent tool to add to your developer toolkit.
Game Loop
Python game programming requires a few fundamentals to create engaging and entertaining games. In this article, we will explore the basics of Python game design, including a gameplay idea, player movement, features like game over, and adding enemies to the game.
We will also cover essential concepts such as imports and constants, windows and sprite lists and sprites with scheduler functions.
Fundamentals of Python Game Design
Before we begin creating our game, it is best to decide on a gameplay idea. For this article, we will create an enemy avoidance game.
This type of game will require the player to move left and right to avoid incoming enemy sprites. If the player comes into contact with an enemy, the game will be over.
To implement this idea, we need to define how the player will move on the screen. We can do this by allowing the player to move left and right using the arrow keys.
If the player hits an enemy sprite, the game is over, and we can display a game over screen.
Imports and Constants
We need to import specific libraries and define some constants to begin coding the game. In this example, we will use the arcade library, random library, and define the size of our game window.
import arcade
import random
WIDTH = 800
HEIGHT = 600
TITLE = "Enemy Avoidance Game"
SCALING = 1.0
In the above code, we define the window size as 800 pixels width and 600 pixels high. We also import the random library and the arcade library.
We will use the arcade library to create the window and handle the graphics in our game.
Window Class
We will define our window using the arcade Window class. This allows us to initialize the window and handle the events that occur during gameplay, such as movement and collisions.
We can do that in the following way:
class GameWindow(arcade.Window):
def __init__(self):
super().__init__(WIDTH, HEIGHT, TITLE)
self.player_sprite = None
self.enemy_list = None
self.cloud_list = None
arcade.set_background_color(arcade.color.SKY_BLUE)
Above, we created a new GameWindow() class and defined the constructor. We passed in the window width, height, and title as arguments.
We also initialized the player sprite, enemy list, and cloud list. Lastly, we set the window’s background color as the sky blue color.
Sprites and Sprite Lists
In any game, there will be different objects on the screen, such as players, enemies, or bullets. In Python game programming, we refer to these objects as sprites.
We can create a player sprite, enemy sprite, and other sprites by using the arcade.Sprite class. The arcade.Sprite class defines the basic sprite class and provides functionality to move, rotate, and scale sprite objects.
To quickly manage our sprites, we can store them in a sprite list. Sprite lists allow us to add and remove sprites easily.
In the constructor of the GameWindow() class, lets add the following code:
self.enemy_list = arcade.SpriteList()
self.cloud_list = arcade.SpriteList()
This creates two sprite lists, one for enemies and one for clouds. We’ll add more to these lists later.
Adding Enemies
Now that we have an idea of how to create a basic game window and player sprite, we can move onto adding in enemies to make things more challenging. We can add enemies to our game by scheduling their appearance on the screen at random intervals using the arcade.schedule() function.
class GameWindow(arcade.Window):
def __init__(self):
... # Create a schedule to spawn enemies
arcade.schedule(self.spawn_enemy, 2.0)
def spawn_enemy(self, delta_time):
enemy = arcade.Sprite("enemy.png", SCALING)
# Set its position
enemy.center_x = random.randrange(WIDTH)
enemy.center_y = HEIGHT - 50
# Add the enemy to the list of sprites
self.enemy_list.append(enemy)
In the above code, we created a new method named spawn_enemy().
This method takes in delta_time as an argument, which is the time since the last call to the method. We create a new arcade.Sprite object for the enemy and set its position using random integers.
We then append the enemy sprite object to the enemy_list sprite list.
Moving Sprites
We want our enemy sprites to move towards the player’s position on the screen. We can do this by updating the enemy sprites position every frame and giving them a velocity.
class GameWindow(arcade.Window):
def __init__(self):
... def on_update(self, delta_time):
self.enemy_list.update()
for enemy in self.enemy_list:
enemy.center_y -= 2
In the above code, we added the method on_update() to our GameWindow() class.
This method takes in delta_time as an argument, which is the time since the last call to the method. We update our enemy_list sprite list, and in a loop, we decrease each enemy sprites center_y by 2 pixels every frame.
Removing Sprites
If an enemy sprite goes off the bottom of the screen without being hit by the player, it should be removed from the game. We can remove enemy sprites from the enemy_list sprite list when they go off the screen using the kill() method.
class GameWindow(arcade.Window):
def __init__(self):
... def on_update(self, delta_time):
self.enemy_list.update()
for enemy in self.enemy_list:
enemy.center_y -= 2
# Remove the enemy if it goes off screen
if enemy.center_y < 0:
enemy.kill()
In the above code, we added a conditional statement to our on_update() method.
If an enemy sprites center_y value is less than zero, it means it has gone off the bottom of the screen, and we call the enemy.kill() method to remove it from the enemy_list sprite list.
Adding Clouds
Lastly, we will add some background clouds to make our game look more visually appealing. We can add clouds to our game using the same technique we used for adding enemy sprites.
class GameWindow(arcade.Window):
def __init__(self):
... # Create a schedule to spawn clouds
arcade.schedule(self.add_cloud, 10.0)
def add_cloud(self, delta_time):
cloud = arcade.Sprite("cloud.png", SCALING)
# Set its position
cloud.center_x = random.randrange(WIDTH)
cloud.center_y = random.randrange(HEIGHT // 2, HEIGHT)
# Add the cloud to the list of sprites
self.cloud_list.append(cloud)
def on_draw(self):
arcade.start_render()
# Draw the clouds
self.cloud_list.draw()
# Draw the enemies
self.enemy_list.draw()
In the above code, we created a new method called add_cloud().
This method creates a new arcade.Sprite object for the cloud and sets its position using random integers. We then add the cloud sprite object to the cloud_list sprite list.
We also added the cloud_list sprite lists draw() method to the on_draw() method of our GameWindow() class.
Conclusion
Python game programming can be both fun and challenging. In this article, we explored the basics of Python game design, including player movement and adding enemies to a game.
We also covered essential concepts like imports and constants, sprite lists, and scheduling functions. By implementing these features, developers can create engaging and entertaining games that will keep players coming back for more.
Keyboard Input
Python game programming is all about interaction. Players use keyboard input to play the game, and developers use keyboard input to update the game objects.
In this article, we will explore how to update game objects using Python arcade library, collision detection, drawing on the window, and adding sound to our game. We will also discuss how to set the game speed and add tweaks and enhancements to our game.
Updating the Game Objects
In Python arcade game programming, we can update the game objects by handling the keyboard input events. We need to define the actions that should be taken when a specific key is pressed or released.
Let’s take a look at an example.
class GameWindow(arcade.Window):
def __init__(self):
... def on_key_press(self, key, modifiers):
if key == arcade.key.LEFT:
self.player_sprite.change_x = -5
elif key == arcade.key.RIGHT:
self.player_sprite.change_x = 5
def on_key_release(self, key, modifiers):
if key == arcade.key.LEFT or key == arcade.key.RIGHT:
self.player_sprite.change_x = 0
In the above code, we created two new methods called on_key_press() and on_key_release().
When the player presses the left arrow key, the player sprites change_x property is set to -5, making the player sprite move to the left. When the player releases the left arrow key, the player sprites change_x property is set back to zero, stopping the player sprite.
Similarly, when the player presses the right arrow key, the player sprites change_x property is set to 5, making the player sprite move to the right.
Drawing on the Window
Graphics are an essential part of any game. We can draw backgrounds, sprites, text, and other elements using the arcade library.
We can draw elements on the screen using the .on_draw() method of our GameWindow class. We will use the arcade.draw_text() method to draw text on the screen.
class GameWindow(arcade.Window):
def __init__(self):
... arcade.set_background_color(arcade.color.WHITE)
def on_draw(self):
arcade.start_render()
# Draw the background
arcade.draw_lrtb_rectangle_filled(0, WIDTH, HEIGHT, 0, arcade.color.SKY_BLUE)
# Draw the player sprite
self.player_sprite.draw()
# Draw the score
arcade.draw_text("Score: " + str(self.score), 10, 10, arcade.color.BLACK, 14)
In the above code, we filled the background of the screen with the color sky blue using the arcade.draw_lrtb_rectangle_filled() method.
We also drew the player sprite using self.player_sprite.draw() method. Finally, we used the arcade.draw_text() method to draw the score on the screen.
Collision Detection
The collision detection is an essential part of Python game programming. We need to detect when two sprites collide, such as when the player sprite hits an enemy sprite.
We can use the arcade.Sprite.collides_with_sprite() method to detect if two sprites collide.
class GameWindow(arcade.Window):
def __init__(self):
... def on_update(self, delta_time):
# Move the player sprite
self.player_sprite.update()
# Update the enemy sprites
self.enemy_list.update()
# Detect collisions between player sprite and enemy list
for enemy in self.enemy_list:
if self.player_sprite.collides_with_sprite(enemy):
self.game_over = True
In the above code, we added the on_update() method to our GameWindow() class.
In this method, we move the player sprite and update the enemy sprites. We then check if the player sprite collides with any enemy sprites by looping through the enemy_list sprite list and calling the collides_with_sprite() method.
If the two sprites collide, we set the game_over boolean value to true.
Sound
Sound effects and music can add another level of immersion to your game. In Python game programming, we can add sound effects and music using the arcade.sound module.
We can play audio files in our game by creating an instance of arcade. Sound class.
class GameWindow(arc