Pygame Boilerplate Apr 2022

I'm poking a bit into gamedev. Partly to better understand, partly because it's stretching different parts of my brain/skillset than writing data pipelines does, but mostly for the experience of designing them with my 9yo Wyatt.

pygame boilerplates #

I've seen several pygame boilerplate templates, but they all seem to rely heavily on globl variables. That's just not how I generally develop anything. I want a package that I can pip install, run, import, test, all the good stuff.

My current starter #

What currently have is a single module starter package that is on github so that I can install it and start building games with very little code.

Installation #

Since it's a package on GitHub you can install it with the git+ prefix.

        
pip install git+https://github.com/WaylonWalker/pygame-starter

Example Game #

You can make a quick game by inheriting from Game, and calling .run(). This example just fills the screen with an aqua color, but you can put all of your game logic in the game method.

        
from pygame_starer import Game

class MyGame(Game):
    def game(self):
        self.screen.fill((128, 255, 255))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    game = MyGame()
    game.run()

The starter #

Here is what the current game.py looks like. I will probably update it as time goes on and I learn more about the things I want to do with it.

        
from typing import Tuple

import pygame


class Game:
    def __init__(
        self,
        screen_size: Tuple[int, int] = (854, 480),
        caption: str = "pygame-starter",
        tick_speed: int = 60,
    ):
        """

        screen_size (Tuple[int, int]): The size of the screen you want to use, defaults to 480p.
        caption (str): the name of the game that will appear in the title of the window, defaults to `pygame-starter`.
        tick_speed (int): the ideal clock speed of the game, defaults to 60

        ## Example Game

        You can make a quick game by inheriting from Game, and calling
        `.run()`.  This example just fills the screen with an aqua color, but
        you can put all of your game logic in the `game` method.

        ``` python
        from pygame_starer import Game

        class MyGame(Game):
            def game(self):
                self.screen.fill((128, 255, 255))

        if __name__ == "__main__":
            game = MyGame()
            game.run()

        ```
        """
        pygame.init()
        pygame.display.set_caption(caption)

        self.screen_size = screen_size
        self.screen = pygame.display.set_mode(self.screen_size)
        self.clock = pygame.time.Clock()
        self.tick_speed = tick_speed

        self.running = True
        self.surfs = []

    def should_quit(self):
        """check for pygame.QUIT event and exit"""
        for event in pygame.event.get():
            if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
                self.running = False

    def game(self):
        """
        This is where you put your game logic.

        """
        ...

    def reset_screen(self):
        """
        fill the screen with black
        """
        self.screen.fill((0, 0, 0))

    def update(self):
        """
        run one update cycle
        """
        self.should_quit()
        self.reset_screen()
        self.game()
        for surf in self.surfs:
            self.screen.blit(surf, (0, 0))
        pygame.display.update()
        self.clock.tick(self.tick_speed)

    def run(self):
        """
        run update at the specified tick_speed, until exit.
        """
        while self.running:
            self.update()
        pygame.quit()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    game = Game()
    game.run()