Stewart Watkiss - Beginning Game Programming with Pygame Zero: Coding Interactive Games on Raspberry Pi Using Python

Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the author in this book is available to readers on GitHub via the book's product page, located at www.apress.com/978-1-4842-5649-7 . For more detailed information, please visit http://www.apress.com/source-code .

This book is designed for anyone wanting to learn programming through making fun games. It will also be useful for someone who has already learned the basics of programming and wants to learn how to add fun graphics and create their own games.

It is focused on making the games rather than teaching programming theory. In this book, you're more likely to see code on how gravity affects a missiles trajectory rather than the most efficient way to search through data. Even then the code is kept simple as games should be more about playability rather than complex physics.

The book starts with a simple text-based game to cover the basics of programming in Python. It then quickly moves on to creating simple graphical games in Pygame Zero. The book introduces object-oriented programming to make it easier to make more complex games. It also explains how you can create your own graphics and sounds.

Throughout the book, you will get to apply the new techniques in a variety of 2D games. As well as some new games, there are some variations on class games including a space shooter game and battleships.

The games are designed to run on the Raspberry Pi, although they can be used on other platforms that support Python 3 with Pygame Zero .

The games you make will be playable and hopefully fun to play. They are only the beginning. If all you ever do is copy the code from this book, then you are only going to learn so much, but by adapting and improving these games, they can become more enjoyable as well as helping you learn more than you ever will from just typing out code that's written down for you. For each of the games, there is a list of suggestions for you to develop the games further.

All the code and resource files used in the book are available from the page to accompany the book at https://www.apress.com/gb/book/9781484256497 .

My family has been very supportive in my maker activities and while writing this book. Thank you to my wife Sarah for her support and to my children Oliver and Amelia who have been a source of inspiration and help while writing the book. Oliver has been particularly helpful in testing the games and giving me feedback, and my daughters knowledge of music was a great help while writing about making sounds.

Id also like to thank the team behind the Raspberry Pi including the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the community that has grown around it. Ive also been inspired by the work of Nicholas Tollervey who created the Mu editor that is used throughout the book and Daniel Pope who created Pygame Zero, without which the book wouldnt have been possible.

Im also grateful to all the support from the team at Apress, to Jessica Vakili for her support in putting the book together, and to Sai Yamanoor for the technical review. There are also many other people who helped to contribute through reviews and getting the book production ready.