Buy used: $21.77

Delivery Friday, May 19

Or fastest delivery Friday, May 12. Order within 14 hrs 59 mins

Used: Very Good | Details

Sold by Jenson Books Inc

Fulfilled by Amazon

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Add to List

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Follow the Author

Al Sweigart

Making Games with Python & Pygame Paperback – January 1, 2012

by Al Sweigart (Author)

(4.2) 149 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$2.99

—

Paperback

"Please retry"

$21.77

$26.66

$17.72

Kindle
$2.99 Read with Our Free App
Paperback
$21.77

11 Used from $17.72 9 New from $26.66

Reading age

Baby - 12 years
Language

English
Dimensions

8 x 1 x 10.25 inches
Publication date

January 1, 2012
ISBN-10

1469901730
ISBN-13

978-1469901732
See all details

Products related to this item
Sponsored Hide feedback

Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Createspace Independent Pub (January 1, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1469901730
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1469901732
Reading age ‏ : ‎ Baby - 12 years
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.9 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8 x 1 x 10.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,581,001 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,617 in Python Programming

Customer Reviews:
(4.2) 149 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Al Sweigart

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Al Sweigart is a software developer and tech book author living in Houston. He has written several programming books for beginners, including Automate the Boring Stuff with Python. His books are freely available under a Creative Commons license at his website https://inventwithpython.com.

Products related to this item
Sponsored Hide feedback

Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5

149 global ratings

5 star		60%
4 star		22%
3 star		5%
2 star		8%
1 star		5%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

!linux_user

Pygame!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 27, 2013

Verified Purchase

You know. I really enjoy this book. Al writes a great book; it is an enjoyable read. This prompted me to buy his other book - Invent your Own Computer Games with Python. Buy them both - you won't be disappointed. The quality of the book (Paper, cover, typeset) is very readable and high-quality for a computer book, which makes it a good library addition. Also, you can get the digital edition free, and lots of code/etc from website - so very good value.

Al presents python and pygame concepts in context of re-creating several typical games - like tetris, memory, othello, wormy, etc. Overall excellent pygame book. Pairs well with the rasperry pi computer... hint hint, nudge nudge. ( The games featured in this book are installed on raspberry pi stock image.. )

Honestly it's more fun than slogging through the pygame website, and example code. Pygame and this book allow you to quickly put together some pretty 'low tech' fun and easy games.

Technically:
The book quickly introduces you to core display concepts like surfaces, drawing shapes, colors, blitting graphics, and playing sounds. Then it guides you through 'event handling' concepts over the course of several games. You will be up and running quickly making your own games with sound/graphics/event handling.

So, really a good intro / even intermediate intro / to pygame, which perhaps doesn't touch on pygame's more advanced topics very deeply. Focuses well on game design concepts, but doesn't get extremely deep into every bell and whistle of pygame, which to me was a good thing, and kept the book understandable and concise. It is not a 'reference' type book, and advanced pygame topics were not included.

16 people found this helpful

Helpful

Jee Vang

Hero to Zero

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 5, 2019

Verified Purchase

If you want to learn Pygame, do NOT buy this book. It is not a good instructional book as you go from zero to 100 in no time; except, in a bad way. For example, first chapter is about installing Python and Pygame; second chapter is about basics; third chapter to the last, the author blasts the reader with full blown complex game programs. Unless the first two chapters provided all the basics, I am not sure how a student is supposed to grasp the large blocks of code. In one of the chapter, the author professes against "magic numbers"; they are bad; no one knows where they come from or mean. Well, the way the author teaches Pygame is no different; without explaining mouse events or the types of events, all of a sudden, we start seeing these concepts out of no where. Granted, the author breaks the huge program down into chunks and explains them later in the chapter; but by then, the reader has lost a sense of progression and direction. I would not recommend this book to teach. Unless you are a seasoned coder and proficient in Python, skip it, as you will find the structure and teaching approach daunting. I have never seen a coding book present teaching material like this one before. First time for everything. To the author, get a clue from Charles Petzold on writing books to teach something.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

code and coffee

First - you can get this book for free online

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 3, 2013

Verified Purchase

When I was a kid, I'd get these magazines every month full of code. You had to type it into your Apple or Commodore. It may or may not run. I looked forward every month to doing this. I have to say this is the first time in 30 years I had that same feeling.

I ignored PyGame for several years because the website has so poorly laid out. I got bored one weekend and decided to give it a whirl recently. I bought this book to give back to the project and I'm glad I did.

While this book won't make you a superstar video game programmer, it may help you build a solid foundation of the underlying code structure required. I had several eureka moments while typing in the examples. I'm a better programmer since reading this book. I wish I would have given PyGame a shot a few years ago.

16 people found this helpful

Helpful

Janet C.

Great for kids

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 16, 2013

Verified Purchase

This series is a bunch of programs that the kids type in and explanations of how the programs work. It's a great jumping off point to messing around -- you start with something that works and change it up to do other things that are more interesting to you. It really doesn't teach computer science at all, the way we grown-ups understand it, but my daughter loves this approach and she's got time to learn the other stuff later. There's a lot to be learned just by the messing around that this book encourages.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Khris B.

The book is awesome

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 18, 2013

Verified Purchase

I am a student in software development, and programming games is all I've wanted to do since the moment I choose this career path. This book helped me get a feel for pygame(the python game library) and was very helpful. I don't suggest buying this book however, because it's completely free at his website. I wish I would have known that, but having the book made it easier to study when I wasn't around my laptop. Awesome book though!

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Hansoo

Great book, need more like it!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 29, 2017

Verified Purchase

We need more books like this! Each example code is broken down line by line with reasons for inclusion in the program. I would not recommend this as a first time programming book because the level of code is a bit higher than that, but this would be great after an introductory book.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kindle Customer

clear and easy to read and undestand

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 27, 2020

Verified Purchase

A simply written and easy to follow guide to anyone wanting to understand and use python.

Helpful

F.K.N. Zach

Al Sweigart is a genius and I love everything he stands for

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 24, 2016

Verified Purchase

Al Sweigart is a genius and I love everything he stands for. This book is so easy to read and understand and he breaks it down even further to explain every line of coding in the book. If you don't understand coding after reading his work, you just won't ever understand.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Adam Carlton

A great entry to writing your own games

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 23, 2013

Verified Purchase

With full Python 3 source code and many kinds of games to choose from, this is an ideal way to learn how to create your own computer games using Python. I don't think you could rely solely on this book to learn the language, it really isn't structured for that purpose, but there are plenty of 'introduction to Python 3' books out there to buy as companions.

Installing the Pygame module (by downloading from the Internet) may not be as easy as the book makes out - it's necessary to align the Python and Pygame release versions exactly (and 32 bit does not equal 64 bit!). A bit of Googling helps and the author can be emailed (and is very helpful) in case of difficulties.

4 people found this helpful

Mr Ree

Making Games with Python & Pygame

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 7, 2020

Verified Purchase

Great book. Love the dissection of program code. Some programming knowledge will be needed so not a beginner book really unless you have programmed before in any language however the Kindle version is surprisingly supportive. Lots of helpful links. Written in a 'not heavy' way. Nice.

W. A. Riley

Outstanding Introductory Guidance for Making Games Software

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 10, 2018

Verified Purchase

Not only does this book provide excellent examples with which to work, but it explains in some detail the reasoning behind the construction and methodology of the programs. Moreover, it gives young or new programmers outstanding guidances on quality software development and standards as well as the syntactic requirements of python and its modules.

Paul B

Great book. My son is PRO now))

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 29, 2022

Verified Purchase

Good book. My son hate it but learnt alot.

Amazon Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 16, 2016

Verified Purchase

good intro to the python world