I think it's quite impressive that you can do a demo this simple in PyGame. None of the examples distributed with PyGame are quite this simple (they probably represent better program design, but this is all about KISS).
It uses the PyGame logo (you can download that separately -- it's part of the documentation for PyGame. You could replace it with any image you want, of course), and makes it do a "drunkard's walk" around the screen. Successive
versions of the script show different kinds of behaviors, from bouncing off of the walls, to responding to key presses. Armed with this, a decent Python book, and the PyGame API documentation (which is excellent, BTW), you shouldbe able to get on your way quickly. I originally called it "drunk.py", but I figured "wiggle.py" was more PC. ;-)
I chose PyGame for this, because:1) Like me, my kids are very motivated by "pretty pictures" -- much more so than by "guess the number" text games. I learned how to program using BASIC on a TRS-80 Color Computer, and just about all I did for the first couple of years was program screen graphics.
2) It's easier to "hack" a working program than to write from scratch3) PyGame is something they actually want to learn how to use, because I can point to real games written using it which I know they like to play (e.g. "SolarWolf").
4) Motivation is more important than ease or skill! I think you can see that PyGame isn't much harder than writing a line-based terminal program, as long as you don't expect too much (line-based programs can be hard too, if they're complicated, of course).Phil: I'm CC'ing you, because you may consider this contributed to PyGame's website if you want to use it -- in fact, you can do anything you want with it, "I consign it to the Public Domain."
Cheers, Terry
wiggle.tgz
Description: GNU Unix tar archive
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