Collision Detection and Zombie Chase - Lesson 7 in the Beginner Series

New video in the seven lesson beginner series focuses on a way to get a monster to chase the girl.  An important point here is the use of colliderect to detect when two rectangles hit each other.  Collision detection of two or more rectangles is the fundamental of shooter games.

In this example, I use two graphics for the Zombie to allow him to run left and right when he's facing the appropriate direction.  Since I'm using the same rectangle for both graphics, I just have one colliderect check.

 

    if player_rect.colliderect(zombie_rect):
        screen.fill(RED)

player_rect is the girl's rectangle.

The algorithm to chase the girl is shown below:
    # chase the girl
    if player_rect.centerx < zombie_rect.centerx:
        zombie_rect.centerx -= 1
        zombie_horiz = "left"
    elif player_rect.centerx > zombie_rect.centerx:
        zombie_rect.centerx += 1
        zombie_horiz = "right"
    if player_rect.centery < zombie_rect.centery:
        zombie_rect.centery -= 1
    elif player_rect.centery > zombie_rect.centery:
        zombie_rect.centery += 1

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An eleven lesson video set is available.

Code repository on GitHub.

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