Pygame: Setup and Installation

Pygame is a popular Python library for building 2D games, handling graphics, sound, input, and timing so you don't have to write that from scratch. In this project, you'll build a clone of the classic arcade game Asteroids: a ship that rotates and thrusts through space, dodging (and eventually destroying) asteroids drifting across the screen.

Installing Pygame

Pygame doesn't run inside this course's browser sandbox (it needs a real window to draw into), so for this project you'll write and run code locally with a real Python install.

pip install pygame

Verify it installed correctly:

import pygame
print(pygame.ver)

Opening a window

Every Pygame program starts the same way: initialize the library, create a window (called a surface), and give it a title.

import pygame

pygame.init()

WIDTH, HEIGHT = 800, 600
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((WIDTH, HEIGHT))
pygame.display.set_caption("Asteroids")

• pygame.init() sets up every Pygame subsystem (display, sound, input) in one call.
• pygame.display.set_mode((width, height)) creates the actual window and returns a Surface you'll draw everything onto.
• Nothing shows up yet, and the window will look "frozen"/unresponsive, that's because there's no loop keeping it open and processing events, which is exactly what the next lesson builds.