Short Hops

Part of the Worlds section of Coddy's Pygame journey. Lesson 12 of 35.

In most platformers a quick tap gives a small hop and a long press a full jump. That lets the player choose the height of every jump.

When the jump key comes up, a KEYUP event arrives. If the player is still rising fast, slow the rise:

elif event.type == pygame.KEYUP and event.key in (pygame.K_SPACE, pygame.K_UP):
    if vel_y < -4:
        vel_y = -4

A held key never sends KEYUP during the rise, so the jump goes its full height. A tap sends it a frame later, the speed drops to -4, and gravity turns the player round a few frames after.

The test vel_y < -4 matters. Near the top, or while falling, vel_y is above -4, and setting it to -4 there would push the player back up.

Challenge

Easy

On a KEYUP of Space or Up, when vel_y is below -4, set vel_y = -4.
Leave the KEYDOWN jump as it is.

Try it yourself

import pygame

TILE = 36
FLOOR = 324
GRAVITY = 1
JUMP = -15

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

background = pygame.image.load("assets/backgrounds/clouds.png").convert_alpha()
grass_img = pygame.image.load("assets/images/grass.png").convert_alpha()
player_img = pygame.image.load("assets/images/player.png").convert_alpha()

player = player_img.get_rect(topleft=(264, 40))
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

    keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
    if keys[pygame.K_LEFT]:
        player.x -= 4
    if keys[pygame.K_RIGHT]:
        player.x += 4

    vel_y += GRAVITY
    player.y += vel_y
    on_ground = False
    if player.bottom > FLOOR:
        player.bottom = FLOOR
        vel_y = 0
        on_ground = True

    for y in range(0, 360, 72):
        for x in range(0, 576, 72):
            screen.blit(background, (x, y))
    for x in range(0, 576, TILE):
        screen.blit(grass_img, (x, FLOOR))
    screen.blit(player_img, player)
    pygame.display.flip()
    clock.tick(60)

pygame.quit()