Space shooter player not becoming inactive while shooting

Question

I have this method that manages the Last Bullet game mode in my game. It keeps track of how many enemies are alive, the number of bullets that every player has available and the number of flying bullets and, if there are no remaining bullets, flying bullets and more than one enemy, the player becomes inactive. But here is the problem, regardless of how many enemies are on the screen, if the player keeps shooting, the remaining bullets are going negative and as long as there are flying bullets on screen, the player stays active, which I don t want to happen. Any ideas of how can I prevent this scenario from happening? I have a variable bullets_allowed in the game that increases or decreases the number of bullets that the player can have on the screen and I know that setting that to always be 1 would solve my issue but I don't want to be able to shoot only 1 at a time.

def last_bullet(self, thunderbird, phoenix):
    """Starts the Last Bullet game mode in which the players must fight aliens
    but they have a limited number of bullets, when a player remains with no bullets
    he dies, when both players are out of bullets, the game is over."""

    aliens_remaining = len(self.game.aliens.sprites())

    flying_thunder_bullets = sum(
        bullet.rect.left > 0
        and bullet.rect.right < self.settings.screen_width
        and bullet.rect.top > 0
        and bullet.rect.bottom < self.settings.screen_height
        for bullet in self.game.thunderbird_bullets.sprites()
    )
    flying_phoenix_bullets = sum(
        bullet.rect.left > 0
        and bullet.rect.right < self.settings.screen_width
        and bullet.rect.top > 0
        and bullet.rect.bottom < self.settings.screen_height
        for bullet in self.game.phoenix_bullets.sprites()
    )
    if thunderbird.remaining_bullets <= 0 and flying_thunder_bullets <= 0 \
        and aliens_remaining > 0:
        thunderbird.state.alive = False

    if phoenix.remaining_bullets <= 0 and flying_phoenix_bullets <= 0 \
        and aliens_remaining > 0:
        phoenix.state.alive = False

    if all(not player.state.alive for player in [thunderbird, phoenix]):
        self.stats.game_active = False

"as long as there are flying bullets on screen, the player stays active, which I don t want to happen" - what if you just remove the `and flying_thunder_bullets <= 0` and the `and flying_phoenix_bullets <= 0` from your code? At the moment, these are specifically ensuring that the player stays alive if they have flying bullets. — slothrop, Mar 30 '23 at 13:43
I have to keep them for the scenario in which there is only one enemy left and one bullet and if the player shoots the bullet and misses, there are also no flying bullets and he becomes inactive, and if it hits the last enemy, it does not become inactive and goes to the next level. @slothrop — Ake, Mar 30 '23 at 13:46
What about not allowing the player to shoot more when they run our of bullets? Basically you separate the ability to shoot bullets from the state of the game being active. When the player runs out of bullets, the "shoot bullet" button would be deactivated while the game stays active until remaining flying bullets are cleared. — Felix Fourcolor, Mar 30 '23 at 15:57
That's exactly what I did, it was simple but I figured it out after I posted the question here. — Ake, Mar 30 '23 at 16:04
If you "figured it out", paste your solution as answer (to help/guide others).. and consider: Questions involving game logic or general game development (which are off-topic here) should be asked at https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/. — hc_dev, Mar 31 '23 at 18:42

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 26 '23 at 19:27

I solved the problem by returning early from the _fire_bullet method that I have in my game, when a player has no remaining bullets.

def _fire_bullet(self, bullets, bullets_allowed, bullet_class, num_bullets, ship):
        """Create new player bullets."""
        # Create the bullets at and position them correctly as the number of bullets increases
        if ship.remaining_bullets <= 0:
            return
        if len(bullets) < bullets_allowed:
            offset_amount = 25
            for i in range(num_bullets):
                new_bullet = bullet_class(self)
                bullets.add(new_bullet)
                offset_x = offset_amount * (i - (num_bullets - 1) / 2)
                offset_y = offset_amount * (i - (num_bullets - 1) / 2)
                new_bullet.rect.centerx = ship.rect.centerx + offset_x
                new_bullet.rect.centery = ship.rect.centery + offset_y
                if self.settings.gm.last_bullet:
                    ship.remaining_bullets -= 1
                    self.score_board.render_bullets_num()

Space shooter player not becoming inactive while shooting

1 Answers1