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Tutorial 1: Hello, world!
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.. This file has been dedicated to the public domain, to the extent
possible under applicable law, via CC0. See
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ for more
information. This file is offered as-is, without any warranty.
.. contents::
The easiest way to learn something new is with an example. We will
start with a very basic example: the traditional "Hello, world!"
program. This example will just project "Hello, world!" onto the
screen.
Setting Up a Project
====================
First, we must create our project directory. I will use "~/hello".
Next, create the game source file inside "~/hello". I am calling it
"hello.py".
Open hello.py so you can start editing it.
Shebang
-------
All Python files which are supposed to be executed should start with
a shebang, which is a line that tells POSIX systems (such as GNU/Linux
systems, BSD, and OS X) how to execute the file. For Python 3, the
version of Python we will be using, the shebang is::
#!/usr/bin/env python3
The shebang should be the very first line of the file. You should also
make sure that the file itself uses Unix-style line endings ("\\n");
this can be done in most text editors via a drop-down list available
when you save, and is done by IDLE automatically. Windows-style line
endings ("\\r\\n") are often interpreted wrongly in POSIX systems, which
defeats the purpose of the shebang.
License
-------
The file is copyrighted by default, so if you do not give the file a
license, it will be illegal for anyone to copy and share the program.
You should always choose a free/libre software license for your
programs. In this example, I will use CC0, which is a public domain
dedication tool. You can use CC0 if you want, or you can choose another
license. You can learn about various free/libre software licenses at
`http://gnu.org/licenses/ `_.
The license text I am using for CC0 is::
# Hello, world!
# Written in 2013 by Julian Marchant
#
# To the extent possible under law, the author(s) have dedicated all
# copyright and related and neighboring rights to this software to the
# public domain worldwide. This software is distributed without any
# warranty.
#
# You should have received a copy of the CC0 Public Domain Dedication
# along with this software. If not, see
# .
Place your license text just under the shebang so that it is prominent.
Imports
-------
Because we are using the SGE, we must import the ``sge`` library. Add
the following line::
import sge
Adding Game Logic
=================
The Game Class
--------------
In SGE games, everything is controlled by a "game" object. The game
object controls everything at the global level, including global events.
To define global events, we need to subclass :class:`sge.dsp.Game` and
create our own game class. We can just call this class ``Game``::
class Game(sge.dsp.Game):
def event_key_press(self, key, char):
if key == 'escape':
self.event_close()
def event_close(self):
self.end()
Because our example is simple, we only need to define two events: the
close event, which occurs when the OS tells the game to close (most
typically when a close button is clicked on), and the key press event,
which occurs when a key is pressed. We want the game to end if either
the OS tells it to close or the Esc key is pressed.
As you may have noticed, we define events by defining certain methods;
in our case, we defined methods to override the
:meth:`sge.dsp.Game.event_key_press` and
:meth:`sge.dsp.Game.event_close` methods.
Our definition of :meth:`event_close` is simple enough: we just call
:meth:`sge.dsp.Game.end`, which ends the game. Our definition of
:meth:`event_key_press` is slightly more complicated; first we have to
check what key was pressed, indicated by the ``key`` argument. If the
key is the Esc key, we call our :meth:`event_close` method. The reason
for calling :meth:`event_close` instead of just calling :meth:`end` is
simple: in the future, we might want to do more than just call
:meth:`end`; perhaps, for example, we decide that we want to add a
confirmation dialog before actually quitting. By connecting the key
press event to the close event, if we do change what the close event
does, that change will also translate to the pressing of the Esc key,
avoiding needless duplication of work.
The Room Class
--------------
Rooms are distinguished places where things happen; for example, each
level in a game would typically be its own room, the title screen might
be a room, the credits screen might be a room, and the options menu
might be a room. In this example, we are only going to have one room,
and this room is going to serve only one function: display "Hello,
world!" in the center of the screen. This will be our room class::
class Room(sge.dsp.Room):
def event_step(self, time_passed, delta_mult):
sge.game.project_text(font, "Hello, world!", sge.game.width / 2,
sge.game.height / 2,
color=sge.gfx.Color("black"), halign="center",
valign="middle")
You can see that the room class is defined very similarly to the game
class. We subclass :class:`sge.dsp.Room` and add a method to override
:meth:`sge.dsp.Room.event_step`, which defines the step event of our
room class. The step event happens over and over again, once every
"frame". You can think of frames as being like the frames in a video;
each frame makes small changes to the image on the screen and then gives
you the new image in a fraction of a second, providing an illusion of
movement.
To display "Hello, world!" onto the screen, we use
:meth:`sge.dsp.Game.project_text`, which instantly displays any text we
want onto the screen. :data:`sge.game` is a variable that always points
to the :class:`sge.dsp.Game` object currently in use.
The first argument of this method is the font to use; we don't have a
font yet, but we are going to define one later and assign it to
``font``. Next is the text to display, which for us is
``"Hello, world!"``.
The next arguments are the horizontal and vertical location of the text
on the screen; we set these to half of the game's width and height,
respectively, to place the text in the center.
Now that all required arguments are defined, we are going to define the
color of the text as a keyword argument, setting it explicitly to black.
Finally, we define ``halign`` and ``valign`` as keyword arguments; these
arguments specify the horizontal and vertical alignment of the text,
respectively.
You might be wondering: why do we keep doing this every frame? Can't we
just do it once, since we're not changing the image? In fact, we can't.
:meth:`sge.dsp.Game.project_text` shows our text, but it only does so
for one frame. You can think of it as working like a movie projector:
if you keep the projector on, you will continue to see the image, but as
soon as the projector stops projecting the image, you can no longer see
the image from the projector. :meth:`sge.dsp.Game.project_text` and
other similar projection methods work the same way.
Starting the Game
=================
If you try to run hello.py now, you will notice that nothing happens.
This is because, while we defined the game logic, we didn't actually
execute it.
Additionally, we are still missing a resource: the font object we want
to use to project text onto the screen. We need to load this resource.
We are going to fix both of these problems by adding some code after our
class definitions::
# Create Game object
Game()
# Create backgrounds
background = sge.gfx.Background([], sge.gfx.Color("white"))
# Load fonts
font = sge.gfx.Font()
# Create rooms
sge.game.start_room = Room(background=background)
if __name__ == '__main__':
sge.game.start()
First, we create a :class:`sge.dsp.Game` object; we don't need to store
it in anything since it is automatically stored in :data:`sge.game`.
Second, we create a :class:`sge.gfx.Background` object to specify what
the background looks like. We make our background all white, with no
layers. (Layers are used to give backgrounds more than a solid color,
which we don't need.)
Third, we create our font. We don't really care what this font looks
like, so we allow the SGE to pick a font. If you do care what font is
used, you can pass the name of a font onto the ``name`` keyword
argument.
Fourth, we create a room. The only argument we pass is the background
argument; we set this to the background we created earlier. Since it is
the room that we are going to start the game with, we need to assign
this room to the special attribute, :attr:`sge.game.start_room`, which
indicates the room that the game starts with.
Finally, with everything in place, we call the
:meth:`sge.dsp.Game.start` method of our game object. This executes all
the game logic we defined earlier. However, we only do this if the
special Python variable, :data:`__name__`, is set to ``"__main__"``,
which means that the current module is the main module, i.e. was
executed rather than imported. It is a good practice to include this
distinction between being executed and being imported in all of your
Python scripts.
The Final Result
================
That's it! If you execute the script now, you will see a white screen
with black text in the center reading "Hello, world!" Pressing the Esc
key or clicking on the close button in the window will close the
program. Congratulations on writing your first SGE program!
This is the completed Hello World program::
#!/usr/bin/env python3
# Hello, world!
# Written in 2013 by Julian Marchant
#
# To the extent possible under law, the author(s) have dedicated all
# copyright and related and neighboring rights to this software to the
# public domain worldwide. This software is distributed without any
# warranty.
#
# You should have received a copy of the CC0 Public Domain Dedication
# along with this software. If not, see
# .
import sge
class Game(sge.dsp.Game):
def event_key_press(self, key, char):
if key == 'escape':
self.event_close()
def event_close(self):
self.end()
class Room(sge.dsp.Room):
def event_step(self, time_passed, delta_mult):
sge.game.project_text(font, "Hello, world!", sge.game.width / 2,
sge.game.height / 2,
color=sge.gfx.Color("black"), halign="center",
valign="middle")
# Create Game object
Game()
# Create backgrounds
background = sge.gfx.Background([], sge.gfx.Color("white"))
# Load fonts
font = sge.gfx.Font()
# Create rooms
sge.game.start_room = Room(background=background)
if __name__ == '__main__':
sge.game.start()