How the programme is structured
The programme runs across 3 modules holding 56 written lessons and 48 more planned, each module at 48 lessons · 48 hours. Every module below lists what it covers and what the student walks away having built.
Need the lesson-by-lesson breakdown? Open the full lesson plan — every lesson with its code, type and milestone.
The friendliest entry into graphical games — sprites, sound, simple physics. Forty-eight one-hour lessons threaded with a dozen mini-games (Pong Lite, Brick Breaker, Asteroids, Endless Runner) leading to a two-part arcade-game capstone. Prerequisite: Python Level 2 (collections + files).
🚀 What you build
- 🎮 Mini-Game: Doodle Pad — Draw with the mouse, clear with space.
- 🎮 Mini-Game: Cat Parade — Ten cats walking in a line, each at its own speed.
- 🧩 Challenge: 100 Sprites at 60 FPS — Spawn 100 actors and keep the frame rate locked.
- 🎮 Mini-Game: Sky Painter — Paint trails on the screen with the arrow keys.
- 🎮 Mini-Game: Bug Squasher — Click moving bugs before they escape.
- 🎮 Mini-Game: Cat & Mouse Chase — WASD to dodge, score for survival time.
- 🎮 Mini-Game: Pong Lite — Two paddles, one ball, infinite rally.
- 🎮 Mini-Game: Brick Breaker — Smash a wall of bricks with a bouncing ball.
- 🎮 Mini-Game: Falling Stars with Sound — Catch the stars; chime on hit, thud on miss.
- 🎮 Mini-Game: Drum Machine — Click pads, schedule beats, play a loop.
- + 8 more projects and challenges in this module
The full power of Pygame — sprite classes, scenes, particle systems, tile maps, 2D physics, dirty-rect optimisation. Forty-eight one-hour lessons, building toward a polished side-scroller capstone with parallax, particles, music and save slots. Prerequisite: Python Level 3 (OOP). Module 1 recommended first.
🚀 What you build
- 🎮 Mini-Game: Top-Down Shooter — Part 1 (Player) — Player class, movement, shooting bullets.
- 🎮 Mini-Game: Top-Down Shooter — Part 2 (Enemies & Bullets) — Enemy spawner, sprite groups, collision resolution.
- 🎮 Mini-Game: Top-Down Shooter — Part 3 (Score & Game Over) — HUD, hi-score table, restart loop.
- 🎮 Mini-Game: Animated Boss Fight — Multi-phase boss with sprite-sheet animations.
- 🎮 Mini-Game: Side-Scroller — Part 1 (Movement & Camera) — Player + tile map + smooth-follow camera.
- 🎮 Mini-Game: Side-Scroller — Part 2 (Physics & Polish) — Add gravity, jumps, collectibles and a goal.
- 🎮 Mini-Game: Particle Showcase (Fireworks) — Click to launch; explode in colour.
- 🛠️ Capstone Part 1: Design & Build — Choose a genre, plan the game, ship a playable prototype.
- 🛠️ Capstone Part 2: Polish, Test & Ship — Particles, sound, save system, and a public release.
One game, eight lessons, and nothing written that you cannot immediately run. Each lesson is a short run of stages — a window, a fall, a landing, a jump, a skeleton pacing a ledge, a health bar draining — and every stage ends with something new on screen. Prerequisite: Module 1, or any Pygame Zero experience up to collisions.
🚀 What you build
- 🛠️ Capstone — Make the Platformer Yours — Coins, stomping and coyote time, then playtest it on somebody else and ship it.