Re: [pygame] Starting a game

[Casey Duncan <casey@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Jun 29, 2007, at 2:34 PM, Charles Joseph Christie II wrote:

> Alright. I don't know if I'm going to be using that MVC stuff...  
> although I
> might reprogram the game to use it later, if I decide it'll be  
> better... but
> I want to start a game now! I'm so bored just sitting here that I  
> may as well
> start something.
>
> So now, I'm going to get started. But the problem is that the last  
> time I
> tried it, I over-complicated it by using advanced sprite functions  
> that I
> didn't understand at all. I'm still trying to figure out an eaiser  
> way to
> draw stuff than making everything a class and making it extend from
> pygame.sprite.Sprite (painful >.<)

My advice, come up with a game concept, then come up with one aspect  
of it that you can implement easily and do that first. For example,  
if you were making a tiled rouge-like game, you could come up with  
some simple art for a player character (like a knight or mage) then  
make it so you move the character in a grid on the screen. If you are  
making an asteroids type game, make it so you can turn your ship,  
then implement thrust, etc.

Try to bite off little chunks you can do in a few hours time and  
don't try and invent the whole thing at once, learn as you go.

Some kinds of games (such as the rouge-like one I mentioned) already  
have lots of pygame implementations, and there are frameworks that  
can help with things like tiling, level design, etc. Sometimes though  
it may be as hard to learn to use the framework as it is to learn  
pygame itself, so beware of biting off more than you can chew.

> Also, some concepts of object orientation seem to have bit me. How  
> should I
> have classes interact with each other? I know I was doing it  
> completely wrong
> last time, and one of my friends called me on it. But I forgot how  
> he said I
> should do it...

Look at other people's code. Games and OO programming go hand-and- 
hand IMO and it really helps you if you have the right level of  
abstraction. The sprite class is supposed to help you in this regard,  
giving you a small organizational unit for the components of your  
game. OTOH, using Sprite may make it more difficult to implement  
certain patterns (i.e., MVC). But to risk overusing a cliche: "Don't  
let the perfect be the enemy of the good", figure out how to make  
something work first then learn how to make it better. Don't try to  
learn everything at once.

Maybe you said this before, but what kind of game are you making? Is  
there another pygame that has similar ideas and elements you can  
borrow from?

-Casey