Step 1 - Basic Structure#

Before we can design our game, we need to do a few things to set rubato up.

First, follow the setup guide, naming your file main.py.

Then, download and extract these files into the same directory as your main.py file (so you have main.py and the files folder in the same directory.)

At this point, your main.py file should look like this:

import rubato as rb

rb.init()

rb.begin()

Running main.py using python main.py should result in a window similar to this appearing:

../../../_images/1.png

rb.init() is the initializer function for the library. It will ensure that rubato can communicate with the computer hardware and set up a window for you.

rb.begin() actually runs the game loop. The loop will handle all of the rendering, player logic, etc. Without calling it, nothing happens.

To customize your game window, you can pass in a few parameters. For now, let’s:

  • Give our window a name

  • Change its resolution

Replace the previous rb.init() call with this:

# initialize a new game
rb.init(
    name="Platformer Demo",  # Set a name
    res=rb.Vector(1920, 1080),  # Set the window resolution (pixel length and height).
        # note that since we didn't also specify a window size,
        # the window will be automatically resized to half of the resolution.
)

Here we’re introducing a new class: rb.Vector.

A rubato Vector is an object that contains two numbers, x and y. A Vector can represent a point, dimensions, a mathematical vector, or anything else that has x and y parameters. The Vector class comes loaded with many useful transformation functions and also allows super intuitive math using operator overloading. We’ll take a deeper look at what that means in a bit.

At this point, running the game should look like this:

../../../_images/2.png

Here is what your main.py should look like:

import rubato as rb

# initialize a new game
rb.init(
    name="Platformer Demo",  # Set a name
    res=rb.Vector(1920, 1080),  # Set the window resolution (pixel length and height).
        # note that since we didn't also specify a window size,
        # the window will be automatically resized to half of the resolution.
)

# begin the game
rb.begin()

If you made it here, great! We’re ready to build the platformer. Next, we’ll create a player and add him to the game.