how to prevent button spamming in pygame

Question

basically, at the moment, in my game the user can shoot as many times as they wish... this defeats the objective of the game (it makes it too easy) as they can just spam bullets. I have a 'Shop' type function which enables the user to purchase upgrades, therefore the spamming defeats the purpose of the shop.

elif event.key == K_SPACE:
                    newBullet = {'rect': pygame.Rect(bulletX, bulletY, 10, 3), 'surface': bullet}
                    pistolSound.play()
                    bullets.append(newBullet)

This is the code, what can I add to it in order prevent the button mashing spam. I'm bad with the pygame time function, but I have a feeling that could be used.

Additionally, i would like to my zombies to spawn consistently instead of at the moment where it is quite random...

timer = clock.tick()
    if waveNumber <= 2:
                timer += 1
                if timer == 2:
                    newZombie = {'rect':pygame.Rect(zombieX, zombieY, 75, 75), 'surface': zombie}
                    zombieSound.play()
                    zombies.append(newZombie)
                    timer = 0

How would I go about doing this? I think I'm using the time function wrong.

Many thanks, Will.

Please consider opening separate questions for unrelated queries — RedBaron, Dec 10 '13 at 11:49
If you want a gun to fire every 0.3 seconds, no matter how much they press (or even hold the button down) you can use a cooldown. http://stackoverflow.com/a/18856389/341744 — ninMonkey, Dec 10 '13 at 18:50

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 10 '13 at 11:52

1

Limit the number of bullets to some small number:

elif event.key == K_SPACE:
    if len(bullets) < 3:
        newBullet = {'rect': pygame.Rect(bulletX, bulletY, 10, 3), 'surface': bullet}
        pistolSound.play()
        bullets.append(newBullet)

edited Dec 10 '13 at 11:52

jonrsharpe

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answered Dec 10 '13 at 11:49

Guntram Blohm

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Thank you for editing, jonrshape. Somehow i was thinking java, not python. That's what happens when programming in several languages at once :-( – Guntram Blohm Dec 10 '13 at 11:53
it's fine, I saw what you meant, luckily I know quite a bit of Java. This wasn't quite what I was looking for, however, it does achieve what I want and I can manipulate the value depending on what upgrades have been bought. Thanks. – user2233480 Dec 10 '13 at 12:07
2

Another possibility would be to save the current time when you generate a bullet, then refuse to generate more bullets for a while afterwards. – Guntram Blohm Dec 10 '13 at 12:12

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 10 '13 at 12:15

You should break your simulation and event handling into brief "turns" and allow the player to shoot only one bullet per turn (or even less).

The closest to your code example would be setting a "shot button pressed this turn" flag when the appropriate kind of event is processed, then after all events have been processed shooting at most once:

#each event
if event.key == K_SPACE:
    playerShooting=True

...

#each turn
if playerShooting:
    newBullet = {'rect': pygame.Rect(bulletX, bulletY, 10, 3), 'surface': bullet}            
    pistolSound.play()
    bullets.append(newBullet)
playerShooting=False#clear to prepare for next turn

Zombies have a similar problem: you cannot predict the value of clock.tick(). Instead, spawn zombies at most once per turn (likely on a schedule, e.g. every fifth turn). The clock should be used to decide whether the main loop should proceed to game state update instead of waiting for further inputs, and to decide when to render frames.

For reference, a bad example and a good but incomplete example of PyGame main loops.

How would i go about putting the spawning of the zombies in a schedule? — user2233480, Dec 10 '13 at 15:05

how to prevent button spamming in pygame

2 Answers2