Waves That Grow

Part of the Game Rules section of Coddy's Pygame journey. Lesson 13 of 29.

Many games come in waves: a group of enemies, a short calm when the last one is gone, then a bigger group. It tells the player the game is getting harder and gives them a moment to breathe.

Two numbers run it: wave, the wave you are on, and to_spawn, how many rocks of this wave are still to drop. The spawn timer drops a rock only while to_spawn is above 0:

if event.type == SPAWN and state == "play" and to_spawn > 0:
    rocks.append(pygame.Rect(random.randint(0, 456), -24, 24, 24))
    to_spawn -= 1

The wave ends when nothing is left to drop and nothing is still falling. Then the next wave starts with one rock more:

if to_spawn == 0 and not rocks:
    wave += 1
    to_spawn = wave + 2

not rocks is true for an empty list. Wave 1 drops 3 rocks, wave 2 drops 4, wave 3 drops 5.

Challenge

Hard

In reset(), set wave = 1 and to_spawn = 3.
Drop a rock on SPAWN only while to_spawn is above 0, and count it down.
In play_frame(), after removing rocks that left: when to_spawn is 0 and rocks is empty, add 1 to wave and set to_spawn = wave + 2.
Show Wave 1, Wave 2 and so on with midtop=(240, 10).

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)
POINT = pygame.USEREVENT + 1
SPAWN = pygame.USEREVENT + 2


def reset():
    global player, rocks, score, lives, hit_time
    player = pygame.Rect(220, 300, 40, 40)
    rocks = []
    score = 0
    lives = 3
    hit_time = -2000
    pygame.time.set_timer(POINT, 1000)
    pygame.time.set_timer(SPAWN, 800)


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)
    for rock in rocks:
        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, rocks
    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())

    for rock in rocks:
        rock.y += 4
    rocks = [rock for rock in rocks if rock.top <= 360]
    now = pygame.time.get_ticks()
    for rock in rocks:
        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 == POINT and state == "play":
            score += 1
        if event.type == SPAWN and state == "play":
            rocks.append(pygame.Rect(random.randint(0, 456), -24, 24, 24))
        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()