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Attack of the Clones

Goal: Students extend sprite-based Pygame work into a hero, enemy, and collectible game.

Duration: 1-2 class hours.

Prerequisites: Race for the Treasure or equivalent Pygame sprite experience.

Overview

The curriculum draft introduces Attack of the Clones after Race for the Treasure. It uses the same core Pygame ideas: sprites, keyboard movement, rectangular collision checks, score/state updates, and win/loss conditions.

Students make or choose three transparent PNG assets:

  • Hero.
  • Villain or clone.
  • Collectible.

Learning Objectives

  • Reuse the sprite movement structure from a prior game.
  • Separate hero, enemy, and collectible roles.
  • Track game state over time.
  • Design additional rules beyond simple two-player racing.
  • Refactor repeated sprite behavior into helper functions or classes.

Suggested Extension Rules

The draft can be taught as a design extension. Useful rule options:

  • The hero collects items while avoiding clones.
  • Clones move randomly or follow the hero.
  • The player wins after collecting a target number of items.
  • The player loses after a collision with a clone.
  • More clones appear as the score increases.

Continuity

Attack of the Clones is a good bridge from guided game implementation to student-designed projects. It also gives a natural reason to introduce classes: each moving object can remember its image, rectangle, speed, and behavior.

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