A couple of years ago I picked up a copy of Sean McManus’s – Mission Python: Code a Space Adventure Game from No Starch Press.
In my opinion, it’s still a great book to get into coding a game in Python using Pygame Zero.
The book explains how to set up your adventure on a Windows PC and Raspberry Pi, but been a macOS user, I decided to post the steps below on to set up your adventure on a Mac.
Note – If you are using macOS 12.0 (Monterey), see my updated post here.
macOS 10.15 (Catalina) now ships with Python3 but I would recommend installing a second version as not to “upset” the OS native shipped version.
The book recommends Python 3.6.6 (at time of writing), I have based this post on Python 3.7.7 (I recommend not going to a higher version as Pygame Zero still has some install issues on the latest Python version 3.8.2).
Install Python 3.7.7
Download Python 3.7.7 from https://www.python.org/downloads/mac-osx/
Double click the installer and follow the on-screen instructions.
Once installed Open Terminal (Cmd+Spacebar, type Terminal, press Enter).
- Type which python3, at the prompt
You should get the below result-
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/bin/python
Install pip3
pip3 (19.2.3) is automatically installed with Python3 (3.7.7), I would recommend updating it to the latest, in Terminal>
- Type pip3 install --upgrade pip - Type pip3 --version
You should get the below result-
pip 20.0.2 from /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pip (python 3.7)
Install Pygame Zero
In Terminal>
- Type pip3 install pgzero - Type pip3 show pgzero
You should see the below in the results-
Name: pgzero
Version: 1.2
Once the above has been completed, you are ready to test Mission Python on your Mac.
Download the Mission Code file from https://www.sean.co.uk/books/mission-python/index.shtm
Once the file has downloaded and unzipped from within Terminal move to the escape folder (I unzipped the into my Downloads folder to test).
- Open Terminal (Cmd+Spacebar, type Terminal, press Enter).
- Type cd Downloads
- Type cd escape
- Type pgzrun escape.py
Once you have done the above the game should start. You are now ready to begin your adventure with Mission Python.
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