A Patrolling Blob

Part of the Worlds section of Coddy's Pygame journey. Lesson 24 of 35.

Two blobs walk to the right and on into the air. A patrolling enemy walks back and forth: it turns when it hits a wall or reaches the end of its ground. The Blob class keeps its direction, 1 for right and -1 for left.

After each step, look at the point one pixel past the blob's front foot, at the height of its feet. If no wall holds that point, the next step would be into the air:

if self.direction > 0:
    ahead = self.rect.right
else:
    ahead = self.rect.left - 1
hit_wall = any(self.rect.colliderect(wall) for wall in walls)
ground_ahead = any(wall.collidepoint(ahead, self.rect.bottom) for wall in walls)
if hit_wall or not ground_ahead:
    self.rect.x -= self.direction
    self.direction = -self.direction

any(...) is True when at least one wall passes the test. A turn undoes the step and flips the direction. The blob's Rect fits its body, 30 by 26, smaller than the 48 pixel image, which is drawn with its bottom middle on the Rect's bottom middle.

Challenge

Hard

In Blob.update, after the step:

Set ahead to self.rect.right when moving right, else self.rect.left - 1.
Find whether the blob overlaps any wall, and whether any wall contains the point (ahead, self.rect.bottom).
If it hit a wall or there is no ground ahead, undo the step and reverse self.direction.

Try it yourself

import pygame

TILE = 36
SPEED = 4
GRAVITY = 1
JUMP = -15
MAX_FALL = 12

LEVEL = [
    "................",
    "................",
    "................",
    "................",
    "..........####..",
    "................",
    "...####.........",
    "................",
    "#.P............#",
    "################",
]

pygame.init()
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((576, 360))
pygame.display.set_caption("Patrol")
clock = pygame.time.Clock()

background = pygame.image.load("assets/backgrounds/clouds.png").convert_alpha()
block_img = pygame.image.load("assets/images/block.png").convert_alpha()
player_img = pygame.image.load("assets/images/player.png").convert_alpha()
blob_img = pygame.image.load("assets/images/blob.png").convert_alpha()


class Blob(pygame.sprite.Sprite):
    def __init__(self, midbottom):
        super().__init__()
        self.image = blob_img
        self.rect = pygame.Rect(0, 0, 30, 26)
        self.rect.midbottom = midbottom
        self.direction = 1

    def update(self):
        self.rect.x += self.direction

walls = []
for row, line in enumerate(LEVEL):
    for col, char in enumerate(line):
        if char == "#":
            walls.append(pygame.Rect(col * TILE, row * TILE, TILE, TILE))
        elif char == "P":
            start = (col * TILE + TILE // 2, row * TILE + TILE)

blobs = pygame.sprite.Group(Blob((432, 144)), Blob((432, 324)))
player = player_img.get_rect(midbottom=start)
vel_y = 0
on_ground = False

running = True
while running:
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            running = False
        elif event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN and event.key in (pygame.K_SPACE, pygame.K_UP):
            if on_ground:
                vel_y = JUMP
        elif event.type == pygame.KEYUP and event.key in (pygame.K_SPACE, pygame.K_UP):
            if vel_y < -4:
                vel_y = -4

    keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
    dx = 0
    if keys[pygame.K_LEFT]:
        dx -= SPEED
    if keys[pygame.K_RIGHT]:
        dx += SPEED

    player.x += dx
    for wall in walls:
        if player.colliderect(wall):
            if dx > 0:
                player.right = wall.left
            elif dx < 0:
                player.left = wall.right

    vel_y = min(vel_y + GRAVITY, MAX_FALL)
    player.y += vel_y
    on_ground = False
    for wall in walls:
        if player.colliderect(wall):
            if vel_y > 0:
                player.bottom = wall.top
                on_ground = True
            elif vel_y < 0:
                player.top = wall.bottom
            vel_y = 0

    blobs.update()

    for y in range(0, 360, 72):
        for x in range(0, 576, 72):
            screen.blit(background, (x, y))
    for wall in walls:
        screen.blit(block_img, wall)
    for blob in blobs:
        screen.blit(blob.image, blob.image.get_rect(midbottom=blob.rect.midbottom))
    screen.blit(player_img, player)
    pygame.display.flip()
    clock.tick(60)

pygame.quit()