Python Game Programming By Example

Alejandro Rodas de Paz, Joseph Howse

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781785281532
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Programming in Python
• Index: Computer Science

A pragmatic guide for developing your own games with Python

About This Book

• Strengthen your fundamentals of game programming with Python language
• Seven hands-on games to create 2D and 3D games rapidly from scratch
• Illustrative guide to explore the different GUI libraries for building your games

Who This Book Is For

If you have ever wanted to create casual games in Python and you would like to explore various GUI technologies that this language offers, this is the book for you. This title is intended for beginners to Python with little or no knowledge of game development, and it covers step by step how to build seven different games, from the well-known Space Invaders to a classical 3D platformer.

What You Will Learn

• Take advantage of Python's clean syntax to build games quickly
• Discover distinct frameworks for developing graphical applications
• Implement non-player characters (NPCs) with autonomous and seemingly intelligent behaviors
• Design and code some popular games like Pong and tower defense
• Compose maps and levels for your sprite-based games in an easy manner
• Modularize and apply object-oriented principles during the design of your games
• Exploit libraries like Chimpunk2D, cocos2d, and Tkinter
• Create natural user interfaces (NUIs), using a camera and computer vision algorithms to interpret the player's real-world actions

In Detail

With a growing interest in learning to program, game development is an appealing topic for getting started with coding. From geometry to basic Artificial Intelligence algorithms, there are plenty of concepts that can be applied in almost every game. Python is a widely used general-purpose, high-level programming language. It provides constructs intended to enable clear programs on both a small and large scale. It is the third most popular language whose grammatical syntax is not predominantly based on C. Python is also very easy to code and is also highly flexible, which is exactly what is required for game development. The user-friendliness of this language allows beginners to code games without too much effort or training. Python also works with very little code and in most cases uses the "use cases" approach, reserving lengthy explicit coding for outliers and exceptions, making game development an achievable feat.

Python Game Programming by Example enables readers to develop cool and popular games in Python without having in-depth programming knowledge of Python. The book includes seven hands-on projects developed with several well-known Python packages, as well as a comprehensive explanation about the theory and design of each game.

It will teach readers about the techniques of game design and coding of some popular games like Pong and tower defense. Thereafter, it will allow readers to add levels of complexities to make the games more fun and realistic using 3D.

At the end of the book, you will have added several GUI libraries like Chimpunk2D, cocos2d, and Tkinter in your tool belt, as well as a handful of recipes and algorithms for developing games with Python.

Style and approach

This book is an example-based guide that will teach you to build games using Python. This book follows a step-by-step approach as it is aimed at beginners who would like to get started with basic game development. By the end of this book you will be competent game developers with good knowledge of programming in Python.

Python Game Programming By Example

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Table of Contents

Python Game Programming By Example

Credits

About the Authors

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why subscribe?

Free access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Downloading the color images of this book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Hello, Pong!

Installing Python

An overview of Breakout

The basic GUI layout

Diving into the Canvas widget

Basic game objects

The Ball class

The Paddle class

The Brick class

Adding the Breakout items

Movement and collisions

Starting the game

Playing Breakout

Summary

2. Cocos Invaders

Installing cocos2d

Getting started with cocos2d

Handling user input

Updating the scene

Processing collisions

Creating game assets

Space Invaders design

The PlayerCannon and GameLayer classes

Invaders!

Shoot'em up!

Adding an HUD

Extra feature – the mystery ship

Summary

3. Building a Tower Defense Game

The tower defense gameplay

Cocos2d actions

Interval actions

Instant actions

Combining actions

Custom actions

Adding a main menu

Tile maps

Tiled Map Editor

Loading tiles

The scenario definition

The scenario class

Transitions between scenes

Game over cut scene

The tower defense actors

Turrets and slots

Enemies

Bunker

Game scene

The HUD class

Assembling the scene

Summary

4. Steering Behaviors

NumPy installation

The ParticleSystem class

A quick demonstration

Implementing steering behaviors

Seek and flee

Arrival

Pursuit and evade

Wander

Obstacle avoidance

Gravitation game

Basic game objects

Planets and pickups

Player and enemies

Explosions

The game layer

Summary

5. Pygame and 3D

Installing packages

Getting started with OpenGL

Initializing the window

Drawing shapes

Running the demo

Refactoring our OpenGL program

Processing the user input

Adding the Pygame library

Pygame 101

Pygame integration

Drawing with OpenGL

The Cube class

Enabling face culling

Basic collision detection game

Summary

6. PyPlatformer

An introduction to game design

Level design

Platformer skills

Component-based game engines

Introducing Pymunk

Building a game framework

Adding physics

Renderable components

The Camera component

The InputManager module

The Game class

Developing PyPlatformer

Creating the platforms

Adding pickups

Shooting!

The Player class and its components

The PyPlatformer class

Summary

7. Augmenting a Board Game with Computer Vision

Planning the Checkers application

Setting up OpenCV and other dependencies

Windows

Mac

Debian and its derivatives, including Raspbian, Ubuntu, and Linux Mint

Fedora and its derivatives, including RHEL and CentOS

OpenSUSE and its derivatives

Supporting multiple versions of OpenCV

Configuring cameras

Working with colors

Building the analyzer

Providing access to the images and classification results

Providing access to parameters for the user to configure

Initializing the entire model of the game

Updating the entire model of the game

Capturing and converting an image

Detecting the board's corners and tracking their motion

Creating and analyzing the bird's-eye view of the board

Analyzing the dominant colors in a square

Classifying the contents of a square

Drawing text

Converting OpenCV images for wxPython

Building the GUI application

Creating a window and binding events

Creating and laying out images in the GUI

Creating and laying out controls

Nesting layouts and setting the root layout

Starting a background thread

Closing a window and stopping a background thread

Configuring the analyzer based on user input

Updating and showing images

Running the application

Troubleshooting the project in real-world conditions

Further reading on OpenCV

Summary

Index

Python Game Programming By Example

Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: September 2015

Production reference: 1230915

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78528-153-2

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Authors

Alejandro Rodas de Paz

Joseph Howse

Reviewers

Benjamin Johnson

Dennis O'Brien

Acquisition Editors

Owen Roberts

Sonali Vernekar

Content Development Editor

Dharmesh Parmar

Technical Editor

Ryan Kochery

Copy Editor

Vikrant Phadke

Project Coordinator

Harshal Ved

Proofreader

Safis Editing

Indexer

Rekha Nair

Graphics

Jason Monteiro

Production Coordinator

Manu Joseph

Cover Work

Manu Joseph

About the Authors

Alejandro Rodas de Paz is a computer engineer and game developer from Seville, Spain.

He came across Python back in 2009, while he was studying at the University of Seville. Alejandro developed several academic projects with Python, from web crawlers to artificial intelligence algorithms. In his spare time, he started building his own games in Python. He did a minor in game design at Hogeschool van Amsterdam, where he created a small 3D game engine based on the ideas he learned during this minor.

He has also developed some open source projects, such as a Python API for the Philips Hue personal lighting system. You can find these projects in his Git...

Table of contents

• Python Game Programming By Example