HSSP Introductory Python Programming through Games

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.

Instructions for August 11th class (adding game and screen characters)

Today we will talk about how to customize a game. First we will review from last class.

Coding instructions

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 lesson6 folder to the desktop.

Type into the terminal the line below, responding yes to any prompts:

sudo apt-get install python-pygame

In the terminal type the following commands:

cd ~/Desktop/lesson6

Drag just game.py file from last week from your flashdrive to the lesson6 folder on your Desktop. Check that the code is running the same as from last week by typing into the terminal:

python game.py

Now we are moving on to adding characters to the screen. Open your game code:

gvim game.py

We are going to customize our game, this involves two steps:

1. loading custom images and 2. blitting images onto characters.

For setp one, add the following code beneath the set of lines that the define the screen:

# Define the screen
width = 640
height = 460
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((width, height))
screen.fill((255,255,255))
main_clock = pygame.time.Clock()

# New code for this class
background_image = pygame.image.load("space.jpg").convert_alpha()
background_image = pygame.transform.scale(background_image,(width,height))

This loads the image "space.jpg" and makes it the same size as the screen you defined with width and height.

Now inside your game loop and below the line we screen.fill, we replacethe following below the line where we draw our screen:

screen.fill((255,255,255)) #draw screen

with a new line:

#New code to add
screen.blit(background_image,(0,0)) #add background on screen

Test this is working by saving the code, then typing in the terminal:

python game.py

Your game should now have a space background. Now we do the same for the player, first load the player image, in the line below where we loaded the background image.

player_image = pygame.image.load("spaceship.png").convert_alpha()
player_image = pygame.transform.scale(player_image, (60, 60))

Now in the game loop, replace the line

pygame.draw.rect(screen, (0,0,0), player) #draw player

with

screen.blit(player_image,player)

When you test the code, a space ship should show up where our player was:

python game.py

Now slightly trickier we do this for the falling objects, add below where we defined

#load a image for falling objects
object_image = pygame.image.load("asteroid.png").convert_alpha()
object_image = pygame.transform.scale(object_image, (50, 50))

and replace the lines:

obj = pygame.draw.circle((screen), (0, 0, 0),
				 (obj.x, obj.y),
				 20, 1)

with the line:

screen.blit(object_image,(obj.x,obj.y))

Now the falling objects should be asteroids. After this, call one of us over and we can help you to add your own images!!!