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Get Started with Serenity Valley Game

This guide will walk you through installing, running, and playing Serenity Valley Game.
1

Install Pygame

Serenity Valley Game is built on Pygame. Install it using pip:
pip install pygame
Make sure you have Python 2.x installed, as the game is written in Python 2.
2

Clone or Download the Project

Get the game source code on your local machine:
git clone <repository-url>
cd serenity-valley-game
Or download and extract the source files to a directory of your choice.
3

Run the Game

Navigate to the source directory and run the main game file:
python game.py
The game window will open with dimensions 580x500 pixels, displaying a wood-textured background.

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What You’ll See

When the game starts, the initialization sequence prints several messages to the console: 
print "Setting global Game params."
# ...
print "Pygame started."
print "Configuring tboard MessageBoard params."
# ...
print "Done setting game options, exiting Game init."
print "Creating game object..."
print "Done. Starting run method"
print "Beginning run sequence."
The game window displays various UI elements including:
  • A wood-textured background
  • A message board showing “This is a test.”
  • Toggle buttons with custom images
  • A clock widget with a rotating hand
  • A text entry field at the bottom
  • Moving objects (rectangles, images, and circles)
  • An optional grid overlay

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Basic Controls

Pause/Resume

Press SPACE to pause or resume the game.
if event.key == pygame.K_SPACE:
    self.paused = not self.paused

Toggle Grid

Press G to show or hide the debug grid overlay.
elif event.key == pygame.K_g:
    # toggle draw grid
    self.options['draw_grid'] = not self.options['draw_grid']
The game runs at 30 FPS, managed by the pygame clock timer in game.py:206.

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Game Structure

The game is organized into several key files: 
# Main game loop and initialization
class Game(object):
    SCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT = 580, 500
    GRID_SIZE = 20
    
    def run(self):
        while True:
            self.time_passed = self.clock.tick(30)
            # Event handling and game logic

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Understanding the Coordinate System

The game uses a grid-based coordinate system with utilities for converting between pixel positions and grid coordinates: 
def xy2coord(self, pos):
    """ Convert a (x, y) pair to a (nrow, ncol) coordinate """
    x, y = (pos[0] - self.field_rect.left, pos[1] - self.field_rect.top)
    return (int(y) / self.GRID_SIZE, int(x) / self.GRID_SIZE)

def coord2xy_mid(self, coord):
    """ Convert a (nrow, ncol) coordinate to a (x, y) pair,
        where x,y is the middle of the square at the coord
    """
    nrow, ncol = coord
    return (
        self.field_rect.left + ncol * self.GRID_SIZE + self.GRID_SIZE / 2, 
        self.field_rect.top + nrow * self.GRID_SIZE + self.GRID_SIZE / 2)

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Next Steps

Explore Widgets

Learn about UI components like MessageBoard, Button, and text entry fields.

Vector Math

Understand the vec2d class for 2D vector operations.

Animations

Create simple animations using the SimpleAnimation class.

Game Architecture

Understand the game structure and how components work together.

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