Pygame 2.6 Quick Reference

This is a summary of some of the most useful modules, classes, methods, and functions in pygame. For more information, see the official documentation.

Topics: colors | keys | rectangles

colors

In Pygame functions, an argument describing a color can be any of the following:

A string with a color name such as 'red'. Here is a complete list of named colors that Pygame supports.
A string in the format '#rrggbb', where rr, gg, and bb are two-digit hex numbers representing red, green, and blue components.
A tuple (R, G, B), where R, G, and B are integers from 0 to 255 representing red, green, and blue components.
A Color object.

keys

Key constants are defined in the pygame module, and include

K_a, ..., K_z: letters
K_SPACE: space
K_UP, K_DOWN, K_LEFT, K_RIGHT: arrow keys
K_LCTRL, K_RCTRL: control keys

rectangles

In Pygame functions, an argument describing a rectangle can be any of the following:

A tuple (left, top, width, height).
A tuple ((left, top), (width, height)).
A Rect object.

pygame

The top-level pygame module.

init(): Initialize the pygame system. Call this function once at the beginning of your program.

class Color

A class representing a color.

Color(r, g, b): Create a Color from red, green and blue components, each in the range from 0 to 255.
Color(name): Create a Color from a color name such as 'red'.

class Rect

A class representing a rectangle. All attributes listed here are read/write.

Rect(left, top, width, height): Create a Rect with the given upper-left corner and size.
r.bottom: The y-coordinate of the bottom of the rectangle.
r.center: A tuple (x, y) containing the center point of the rectangle.
r.left: The x-coordinate of the left side of the rectangle.
r.right: The x-coordinate of the right side of the rectangle.
r.top: The y-coordinate of the top of the rectangle.
r.collidepoint(x, y) r.collidepoint((x, y)) r.collidepoint(vec): Return true if the given point or Vector2 is inside this rectangle.
r.colliderect(rect): Return True if two rectangles overlap, otherwise false.

class Surface

A Surface object represents an image with a fixed size and pixel format. Use the image.load() function to load a Surface from a file.

s.blit(source, dest, area = None): Draw a source surface onto this surface. dest is a pair of coordinates indicating where the upper-left corner of the source should be positioned.; If area is specified, it is a rectangle representing the portion of the source surface to draw.
s.fill(color): Fill a surface with a solid color.
s.get_height(): Return the height of a surface in pixels.
s.get_width(): Return the width of a surface in pixels.
s.get_rect(): Return a rectangle covering the entire surface.
s.subsurface(rect): Given a rectangle representing part of the area of this surface, return a subsurface that references the pixels in that area. The original surface and the subsurface share the pixels: a change in one will be reflected in the other.

class Vector2

A two-dimensional vector. Numerical operations (e.g. +, -, *, /) will work on Vector2 objects. vec * vec will compute the dot product of two vectors.

v.x: The x component.
v.y: The y component.
Vector2.from_polar((r, phi)): Create a Vector2 from the polar coordinates (r, phi), where r is the distance from the origin and phi is an angle in degrees.
v.rotate(angle): Return a Vector2 that has the same length as self and is rotated clockwise by the given angle in degrees.

pygame.display

display.flip(): Update the display by copying the display Surface to the physical display. Typically you will call this function once in each iteration of your main event loop.
display.set_caption(title): Set the title of the window containing the display surface.
display.set_mode(size = (0, 0)): Create and return a display Surface with the given size, which must be a pair of integers representing a width and height. If size is not specified, the surface will be as large as the current screen resolution.

pygame.draw

This module contains functions that draw simple shapes such as lines, rectangles, and circles.

In all functions below, any parameter representing a point is a pair of ints or floats, or a Vector2 object.

draw.circle(surface, color, center, radius, width = 0): Draw a circle. If width is 0, the circle will be filled.
draw.ellipse(surface, color, rect, width = 0): Draw an ellipse, given a rectangle representing its bounding box. If width is 0, the ellipse will be filled.
draw.line(surface, color, start_pos, end_pos, width = 1): Draw a line.
draw.polygon(surface, color, points, width = 0): Draw a polygon. points is a sequence of 3 or more (x, y) pairs representing the vertices of the polygon. If width is 0, the polygon will be filled.
draw.rect(surface, color, rect, width = 0): Draw a rectangle. If width is 0, the rectangle will be filled.

pygame.event

This module contains classes and functions for working with events and the event queue.

Every event is represented by an EventType object and has a type. Each type of event has a certain set of attributes. Event types (which are defined in the pygame module) and their attributes include

KEYDOWN (key) – the user has pressed a key
KEYUP (key) – the user has released a key
MOUSEBUTTONDOWN (pos, button) – the user has pressed a mouse button
MOUSEBUTTONUP (pos, button) – the user has released a mouse button
MOUSEMOTION (pos) – the user has moved the mouse
QUIT – the user has closed the window

For KEYDOWN and KEYUP events, the key attribute is a key constant representing the key that was pressed.

For mouse events, the pos attribute is a pair of integers indicating where the mouse was pressed, released, or moved. The button attribute is an integer indicating a button number, where 1 is the primary mouse button (typically the left button).

event.get(): Retrieve all pending events from the event queue and return them as a Python sequence.
event.wait(): Return the next event from the queue, waiting for it if necessary.

class EventType

A pygame event. The type attribute is an integer representing a type of event.

pygame.font

class Font

A object representing a font with a particular style and size.

Font(filename, size): Load a font with the given filename, or a default font if filename is None. size is the height of the font in pixels.
SysFont(name, size, bold = False, italic = False): Load a font with the given name and attributes. 'name' can either be a specific font name such as 'times' or 'arial', or a generic name such as 'monospace', 'sans' or 'serif'. If 'name' is the empty string or no font with the given name can be found, pygame loads the default pygame font instead.; The font name can also be a list of font names to try in order.
f.render(text, antialias, color): Return a Surface with the given text rendered on it. If antialias is True, the text will be drawn with antialiasing, i.e. edges will appear smooth.

pygame.image

image.load(filename): Load an image from a file, returning a Surface. pygame can read images in many different formats including BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG and TIF.

pygame.key

key.get_pressed(): Return a sequence of booleans representing whether each key is currently pressed. You can use key constants as indexes into this sequence. For example, key.get_pressed()[K_a] is true if the A key is currently held down.

pygame.time

class Clock

An object that keeps track of time.

Clock(): Create a new Clock object.
c.tick(framerate): Wait until the current tick has elapsed. framerate is the number of ticks per second.

pygame.transform

transform.scale2x(image): Return a copy of an image scaled up by a factor of 2, using a scaling algorithm that works well for low-resolution pixellated images.
transform.smoothscale(image, new_size): Return a copy of an image scaled to a new size, expressed as a pair of ints containing a width and height in pixels.