Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Topics Covered In This Chapter:
Downloading and installing the Python interpreter.
Using IDLE's interactive shell to run instructions.
How to use this topic.
The topic's website at http://inventwithpython.com
Hello! This is a topic that will teach you how to program by showing you how to create
computer games. Once you learn how the games in this topic work, you'll be able to create
your own games. All you'll need is a computer, some software called the Python
Interpreter, and this topic. The software you'll need is free and you can download it from
the Internet.
When I was a kid, I found a topic like this that taught me how to write my first programs
and games. It was fun and easy. Now as an adult, I still have fun programming computers,
and I get paid for it. But even if you don't become a computer programmer when you grow
up, programming is a useful and fun skill to have.
Computers are very useful machines. The good news is that learning to program a
computer is easy. If you can read this topic, you can program a computer. A computer
program
is just a bunch of instructions run by a computer, just like a storybook is just a
whole bunch of sentences read by the reader.
These instructions are like the turn-by-turn instructions you might get for walking to a
friend's house. (Turn left at the light, walk two blocks, keep walking until you find the first
blue house on the right.) The computer follows each instruction that you give it in the order
that you give it. Video games are themselves nothing but computer programs. (And very
