Part 11 – Setting a time limit

You have most of your Space Turtle Chomp game developed now, however at the moment it can go on forever, like most games what you can do is set a time limit for the game duration, again this is simple to do.

Step 1. Move to the top of your code and import the time function with the other import's:

import time

Step 2. Move down to the just below the # Set speed variable section and add:

# Set game time limit for 1 minute (60 seconds)
timeout = time.time() + 10*6

note we set our game timeout to 6 lots of 10 second for a 1 minute game we could set it to 5 for 30 seconds or 5*5 for 25 seconds

Step 3. Move to the top of the while true section and add the following:

    gametime = 0
    if gametime == 6 or time.time() > timeout:
        break
    gametime = gametime - 1

*note: you set a variable called gametime and set it to 0, the if statement then runs the loop until gametime = 6

Step 4. Save your game as kbgame11 and run your Module

You should now have 60 seconds to chomp more space cabbages than your computer opponent before the game ends, fantastic well done. The last thing you can do for your game as part of this tutorial is have the game display who wins at the end of 60 seconds.

Step 5. Move to the very end of your code and add the following simple if statement and argument this time the text is not indented until after the if statement:

if (int(score) > int(comp_score)):
    mypen.setposition(0, 0)
    mypen.color("yellow")
    mypen.write("Game Over: You WIN", False, align="center", font=("Arial", 28, "normal"))
else:
    mypen.setposition(0, 0)
    mypen.color("yellow")
    mypen.write("Game Over: You LOOSE", False, align="center", font=("Arial", 28, "normal"))

The If statement compares your score (player) against the opponent score (comp) and if your score is higher it prints the You Win message and if it is lower it prints the You Loose message.

That is the end of today’s tutorial, if you got through all of it in 1 day well done that is an awesome effort but it doesn’t matter if you didn’t as the tutorial is online and you can still access it from home. Don't forget to join our She Codes online community to keep in touch with your mentors and ask for help.

If you enjoyed this and wanted to continue practising, other things you might want to try is

• Making multiple opponents using the List [] function like you did for food
• Setting a start option at the beginning of the game
• Setting a play again option at the end
• Setting up a easy, medium and hard option for the game

There are lots of tutorials and help out on the internet if you look. It is also a great idea to try the other game options from Christian Thompson at his site http://christianthompson.com

Your code should look like this: Mac/Linux kbgame11.py, Windows kbgame11.py

Congratulations Module 11 Completed