All games run off something called a "Game Loop" which is comprised of three different components
- Process Input / "events"
- i.e. mouse click or keyboard press
- Update Game
- i.e. update character as it moves by input methods
- Render
- basically - redrawing the game
This is how many times per second does the game loop repeat.
- This has to be a happy medium, not too fast that it wont work on some computers and not too slow that it lags
- essentially how fast the game is
I also learned some really cool stuff about FPS. Basically, clock.tick keeps track of how long it took to run through the entire game loop. If it was less time than whatever variable you decided on (let just say 30 fps or 1/30th of a second) then it will pause until that time period is complete and then start again. This ensure the loop always happens at the same speed.
If it takes more than the variable you defined (more than 1/30th of a second) then you get the dreadded LAG 💀
Colour in Python/Pygame is defined by RGB values. It's good to this list these where you list the other variables so that you can constantly call upon them
On the topic of colour, constant redrawing for character movement really slows down your game.
To avoid this we use something called *Double Buffering*
Think of this like drawing on a two sided white board. You draw on the back where your audience can't see and when you're ready you flip the board when its finished Next time you're drawing, when youre finished you flip it again
This is used by the command
pygame.display.flip()To keep time we use
clock.tick(fps)its smart to define your variables beforehand so if you change how fast you want your FPS to be you dont have to look for all instances of it
To initialize the game use the following: python pygame.init() basically just makes a bunch of magic happen, will update my knowlegde about this in another day. For now: all I know is its magic ✨
# Python Pygame skeleton for a new project
import pygame #import pygame library
import random #so I can have random components to my game.
WIDTH = 360 #average mobile size
HEIGHT = 480
FPS = 30
#define a few useful colours
WHITE = (255.255.255)
BLACK = (0, 0, 0)
RED = (255, 0, 0)
GREEN = (0, 255, 0)
BLUE = (0, 0, 255)
MAGENTA = (255, 0, 255)
# initialize pygame and create window
pygame.init() # initializes game
pygame.mixer.init() # handles sound effects and music in game
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((WIDTH, HEIGHT)) #window
pygame.display.set_caption("My Swagilicious Game") #what the title of it will be at the top of your screen, obviously update later
clock = pygame.time.Clock() #keeps track of time
# Game loop
running = True #set to false when we want to stop our game
while running:
#keep loop running at the right speed
clock.tick(FPS)
#process input (events)
for event in pygame.event.get():
#check for closing window
if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
running = False
#update
#draw/render
screen.fill(MAGENTA) #fill screen with solid colour instead of having moving parts/sprites
# *after* drawing everything, this happens last
pygame.display.flip()
pygame.quit()