Python pygame - avoiding accidental continuous clicking

Question

Edit: added a longer example code.

I'm having trouble with coding buttons in pygame. I'm a newbie to the pygame module, so be gentle.

Basically, the goal is to make a point-and-click telltale kind of game. The player gets presented with two choices each gameloop, ie "go left" or "go right". Accordingly, there are two buttons in each gameloop, all located at the same coordinates.

Here is the function:

import pygame
import os
import time

pygame.init()

display_width= 1280
display_height = 720

gameDisplay = pygame.display.set_mode((display_width, display_height))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()

def button(msg,x, y, w, h, ic, ac, action=None): #message, x y location, width, height, inactive and active colour
    if action ==None:
        pygame.display.update()
        clock.tick(15)
    mouse = pygame.mouse.get_pos()
    click = pygame.mouse.get_pressed()
    if x+w > mouse[0] > x and y+h > mouse[1] > y:
        pygame.draw.rect(gameDisplay, ac,(x,y,w,h))
        for event in pygame.event.get():
            if event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONDOWN:
                pygame.display.update()
                clock.tick(15)
                if action == "left1":
                    game_loop("loop1-1.png",0,0,"left2","left2","","")
    else:
        pygame.draw.rect(gameDisplay, ic,(x,y,w,h))

    smallText = pygame.font.SysFont('timesnewroman',20)
    textSurf, textRect = text_objects(msg, smallText, silver)
    textRect.center = ( (x+(w/2)), (y+(h/2)) )
    gameDisplay.blit(textSurf, textRect)

def game_loop(pic,width,heigth,act1,act2,left,right):
    intro = True
    while intro:
        for event in pygame.event.get():
            print(event)
            if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
                pygame.quit()
                quit()

        gameDisplay.fill(white)
        gameDisplay.blit(get_image(pic), (0, 0)) #MAIN MENU PIC

        button(left,440,450,width,heigth, dark_gray, gray, action=act1)#start nupp
        button(right,740,450,width,heigth, dark_gray, gray, action=act2)#exit nupp

        pygame.display.update()
        clock.tick(15)

The problem occurs when I click the button carelessly, meaning if I don't purposefully click on the left mouse button as fast as I can. Once game_loop1 is called and if I click for a bit longer, the program will read the first click again in this game_loop1 and run the next game_loop and then the next etc. This means the player can accidentally skip through gameloops.

Is there a way to delay the program after the first click(however long it is)? Or maybe a way to include keyup in the function, so it won't count the click in the next gameloop?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I think your original code is a bit too convoluted to fix it and I'll rather show you some better ways to do what you want. You need a finite-state machine to transition between different states/scenes. You can find a simple example with functions as scenes here.

If the logic in your scenes is mostly the same, you could also try to just swap out the data for the scene, for example the background image. Each state/scene needs to know to which new states it can switch, so I put the data into a dictionary of dictionaries. The nested dicts contain the background image of the scene and the connected left and right scenes. When the user presses a button/rect I check if it was the left or right button and then switch to the corresponding scene (subdict) in the states dictionary.

import pygame


pygame.init()

display_width= 1280
display_height = 720

gameDisplay = pygame.display.set_mode((display_width, display_height))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()

# Use uppercase names for constants that should never be changed.
DARK_GRAY = pygame.Color('gray13')
BACKGROUND1 = pygame.Surface((display_width, display_height))
BACKGROUND1.fill((30, 150, 90))
BACKGROUND2 = pygame.Surface((display_width, display_height))
BACKGROUND2.fill((140, 50, 0))
BACKGROUND3 = pygame.Surface((display_width, display_height))
BACKGROUND3.fill((0, 80, 170))

states = {
    'scene1': {'background': BACKGROUND1, 'left_scene': 'scene2', 'right_scene': 'scene3'},
    'scene2': {'background': BACKGROUND2, 'left_scene': 'scene1', 'right_scene': 'scene3'},
    'scene3': {'background': BACKGROUND3, 'left_scene': 'scene1', 'right_scene': 'scene2'},
    }

def game_loop():
    # The buttons are just pygame.Rects.
    left_button = pygame.Rect(440, 450, 60, 40)
    right_button = pygame.Rect(740, 450, 60, 40)
    # The current_scene is a dictionary with the relevant data.
    current_scene = states['scene1']

    while True:
        for event in pygame.event.get():
            if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
                return
            elif event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONDOWN:
                # If the left button is clicked we switch to the 'left_scene'
                # in the `current_scene` dictionary.
                if left_button.collidepoint(event.pos):
                    current_scene = states[current_scene['left_scene']]
                    print(current_scene)
                # If the right button is clicked we switch to the 'right_scene'.
                elif right_button.collidepoint(event.pos):
                    current_scene = states[current_scene['right_scene']]
                    print(current_scene)

        # Blit the current background.
        gameDisplay.blit(current_scene['background'], (0, 0))
        # Always draw the button rects.
        pygame.draw.rect(gameDisplay, DARK_GRAY, left_button)
        pygame.draw.rect(gameDisplay, DARK_GRAY, right_button)
        pygame.display.update()
        clock.tick(30)  # 30 FPS feels more responsive.


game_loop()
pygame.quit()