A Timer Event

Part of the Game Rules section of Coddy's Pygame journey. Lesson 11 of 29.

A point for each rock that falls past rewards waiting. A point for each second you survive is fairer. pygame can send your game an event of its own every second.

Event types are numbers. pygame.USEREVENT is the first one pygame leaves free for you, so name yours from it:

POINT = pygame.USEREVENT + 1
...
pygame.time.set_timer(POINT, 1000)

From then on, a POINT event arrives every 1000 ms with the other events, and you handle it like a key press:

if event.type == POINT and state == "play":
    score += 1

The timer keeps running on the menu and the game over screen, so test the state. Calling set_timer again restarts it, which is why it goes in reset(): each new game waits a full second for its first point.

Challenge

Medium

Add POINT = pygame.USEREVENT + 1 after the colours.
In reset(), start a timer that sends POINT every 1000 ms.
On a POINT event during play, add 1 to the score.
Rocks that fall past no longer score.

Try it yourself

import random
import pygame

pygame.init()
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((480, 360))
pygame.display.set_caption("Meteor Dodge")
clock = pygame.time.Clock()
heart = pygame.image.load("assets/images/heart.png").convert_alpha()
heart_empty = pygame.image.load("assets/images/heart_empty.png").convert_alpha()
font = pygame.font.Font("assets/fonts/pixel.ttf", 24)
big_font = pygame.font.Font("assets/fonts/pixel.ttf", 48)
WHITE = (240, 240, 240)
PLATE = (60, 60, 90)


def reset():
    global player, rock, score, lives, hit_time
    player = pygame.Rect(220, 300, 40, 40)
    rock = pygame.Rect(random.randint(0, 456), -24, 24, 24)
    score = 0
    lives = 3
    hit_time = -2000


def draw_menu():
    screen.fill((30, 30, 46))
    title = big_font.render("Meteor Dodge", True, WHITE)
    title_rect = title.get_rect(center=(240, 140))
    pygame.draw.rect(screen, PLATE, title_rect.inflate(24, 12))
    screen.blit(title, title_rect)
    hint = font.render("Press Enter to play", True, WHITE)
    screen.blit(hint, hint.get_rect(center=(240, 200)))


def draw_game():
    screen.fill((30, 30, 46))
    safe = pygame.time.get_ticks() - hit_time < 1000
    if not safe or pygame.time.get_ticks() // 100 % 2 == 0:
        pygame.draw.rect(screen, (255, 196, 0), player)
    pygame.draw.rect(screen, (235, 80, 80), rock)
    score_text = font.render(f"{score:05}", True, WHITE)
    score_rect = score_text.get_rect(topright=(470, 10))
    pygame.draw.rect(screen, PLATE, score_rect.inflate(12, 8))
    screen.blit(score_text, score_rect)
    for i in range(3):
        if i < lives:
            screen.blit(heart, (10 + i * 40, 10))
        else:
            screen.blit(heart_empty, (10 + i * 40, 10))


def play_frame():
    global score, lives, state, hit_time
    keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
    if keys[pygame.K_LEFT]:
        player.x -= 6
    if keys[pygame.K_RIGHT]:
        player.x += 6
    player.clamp_ip(screen.get_rect())

    rock.y += 4
    if rock.top > 360:
        rock.y = -24
        rock.x = random.randint(0, 456)
        score += 1
    now = pygame.time.get_ticks()
    if rock.colliderect(player) and now - hit_time > 1000:
        hit_time = now
        lives -= 1
        if lives == 0:
            state = "over"
    draw_game()


def draw_over():
    draw_game()
    message = big_font.render("Game over", True, WHITE)
    screen.blit(message, message.get_rect(center=(240, 160)))
    hint = font.render("Press R to play again", True, WHITE)
    screen.blit(hint, hint.get_rect(center=(240, 200)))


reset()
state = "menu"

running = True
while running:
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            running = False
        if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN:
            if event.key == pygame.K_RETURN and state == "menu":
                state = "play"
            elif event.key == pygame.K_r and state == "over":
                reset()
                state = "play"

    if state == "menu":
        draw_menu()
    elif state == "play":
        play_frame()
    else:
        draw_over()
    pygame.display.flip()
    clock.tick(60)

pygame.quit()