Source Code Makeover: Demon Kingdom, Part 1
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
In this blog post, I’m taking a game off of Pygame.org and going through it to make it more readable and extend its functionality.
Comments on John Resig's "Programming Book Profits" (and on Self-Publishing)
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
Text Adventure vs. MUD vs. Roguelike vs. Dwarf Fortress
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
A text-style game is a common project for beginner programmers. These can be fun to do, but also require spending time up-front to design it is worthwhile. Before you start designing your own game, look at the design decisions of a few different text-style game genres.
Multithreaded Python Tutorial with the "Threadworms" Demo
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
"Hacking Secret Ciphers with Python" Released
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
My third book, Hacking Secret Ciphers with Python, is finished.
What Professional Games Use Pygame?
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
A list of commercial video games that use Pygame.
Why I Recommend Against Hackety Hack
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
Hackety Hack was a project originally started by _why the lucky stiff to teach kids programming in Ruby. It often comes up in "I want to teach my kid programming" forum threads. So I downloaded Hackety Hack and decided to give it a try.
I found Hackety Hack to be frustrating and was very unimpressed with it, and do not recommend it as a way to teach programming to a beginner.
8-bit NES Legend of Zelda Map Data
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
I've created Python & Pygame script that lets you walk around the overworld map of the original Legend of Zelda game on the 8-bit Nintendo. There are no monsters or levels or items; it is simply a walking tour. The Link walking sprite animation is implemented by my Pyganim module.
Programming AI Bots for Zombie Dice
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
(This blog post may be obsolete. Please read "Writing Bots to Play Zombie Dice" instead.
PygButton - Designing a Button UI Module for Pygame
Posted by Al Sweigart in misc
A button is a common user interface (UI) control that is used in many software applications. It seems simple enough: there's a button on the window and you click on it and something happens. But there's a lot of details we should plan out ahead of time. Remember, we want to make a generic button class so that other programmers can use this in their games and programs. Once you've read through the process here, you'll be familiar with how to make your own modules for UI elements.