Creating a Mario Maker style game in Python

Creating a Mario Maker style game in Python with a level editor, transitions, enemy behaviour, animations, menus and a player camera. It's a really chunky project.
If you want to support me: / clearcode
(You also get lots of perks)
Social stuff:
Twitter - / clear_coder
Discord - / discord
Timestamps:
000:00:00 - intro
00:01:48 - Introduction and editor
00:11:06 - Editor origin and support lines
00:45:47 - Changing the mouse cursor
00:49:32 - Creating the menu
01:43:36 - Creating the level tiles
02:11:56 - Level drawing logic
02:18:37 - Drawing the terrain
02:54:55 - Drawing the water
03:05:04 - Tile animations
03:24:17 - Deleting tiles
03:32:11 - Adding objects
04:11:13 - More on objects
04:23:19 - Previewing items in the editor
04:48:25 - Creating the editor sky
05:20:46 - Exporting the editor data
05:56:24 - Fixing some drawing issues
06:01:45 - Creating the level transition
06:20:25 - Creating the terrain and the player (in the level)
06:36:02 - Animating the level tiles
07:05:05 - Adding other objects
07:35:04 - Player movement
08:14:28 - Adding player graphics
08:27:47 - Creating the player camera
08:40:05 - Creating the shell enemy
09:05:58 - Creating the tooth enemy
09:22:49 - Adding player damage logic
09:31:28 - Creating the level sky
09:57:27 - Adding sound
10:08:12 - Finishing up
Sourcefiles are available here: github.com/clear-code-project...

[@ClearCode]

You can get my pygame course here: www.udemy.com/course/learn-python-by-making-games/?referralCode=A80FECE8C76096E01111

[@brandonjacksoon]

I'm not a pygame gamedev but I will buy it to support you. You are a cool person with clear and cool tutorials. Thanks!

[@N0OBB]

getting all of the graphics is hard, especially the terrain 😓 EDIT: WHYYYYYYYYY ARE THERE SO MANY graphic/land GRAPHICS

[@guilhermecampos8313]

I bought it and just finished the frooger game! Are you making or planing to make more courses?

[@tuscanland]

I just signed up for Kinoppi, thank you!

[@UnleashedEntomber]

Wow! you have udemy course! will enroll for sure

[@artcadedev]

The amount of effort you put into these tutorials is astonishing

[@DaBallsMan]

When did that adjective start existing 💀

[@dkoorse]

@@DaBallsMan I never have seen it, but I understand it somehow

[@catsouls4714]

@@DaBallsMan earth-shattering, dumbfoundingly, staggering

[@DaBallsMan]

@@catsouls4714 took 3 months for bro to reply 💀

[@KDYinYouTube]

​@@DaBallsMan I learn that adj before the common one

[@hollowneedles]

My jaw dropped when I realized that you were literally narrating a video COHERENTLY during 10 hours of coding. I kept checking the video length because I thought I was just looking at it wrong. You are a legend dude. Hats off!

[@brandonjacksoon]

I can't imagine how much time you spend on this AWESOME tutorial. You are helping to community a lot. Best.

[@teabow.]

Just reading the name of this video is insane! Thank you for all the work you put into these videos, they truly are fantastic!

[@freestyler6427]

these are the most in-depth but easy to follow videos I've been able to find. Your work is astounding and appreciated!

[@mcstudios9585]

i have just finished the introduction into pygame and that has helped me understand code so i can now follow you're harder and more complex tutorials such as this one thank you so much for the amount of time and effort you put into making these it helps out a lot since i am learning how to code.

[@williamoliveira105]

This is simply amazing. I can't imagine how much effort you put into these tutorials. Thank you so much for your content, I've been learning a lot about advanced programming topics with you!

[@someone_unkn0wn]

I really appreciate your hard work and I look forward to supporting you as much as I can:)

[@tomkommando]

Thank you so much for the tutorial. So enjoyable to follow along and write code. This channel delivers probably the best Pygame related tutorials I have found on KZbin this far.

[@fidelrivera2887]

Holy crap... this took me a month to get thru but well worth it. Thank you so much for these projects... I have learned so much (usually by making mistakes and spending an hour to fix it). If you follow along pay attention... steal your focus away for a second and you miss something important. Big thanks again! On to the next one....

[@griffin-leonard]

Your tutorials are amazing! I'm quite familiar with pygame so I end up skimming mainly, but the fact that you go into so much detail is fantastic if I forget something. I love your venn diagrams for explaining things conceptually before jumping into code. The way you draw on the screen to explain code is great too! But even better than that, you make sure to mention details that others don't, like how something may affect your performance and how to tweak something if I want to do it a little differently. If I wasn't completely broke I would definitely donate to your Patreon for all your amazing content, you definitely deserve it!!

[@macroalpha5433]

I just wanted to say, Thank You! Your tutorials have seriously been helpful. I've been working with books and other dry material. So again, Thanks.

[@SpyderGamer]

Amazing video as always, the quality of the tutorials is top notch. Keep it up! :D

[@brandonjacksoon]

Awesome course! Thanks Clear Code!

[@SuperOpasni]

Keep it up bro. Sick content with simple explanations!

[@jamesbondisamonkey]

awesome tutorial, i've made some games before but this is really helpful in understanding the different pygame built in class methods, thank you !

[@MustafaTuncay..]

Great video again! I can't wait to watch and imply all these :)

[@KaarinGaming]

I thought the thumbnail looked familiar. You are using the same asset pack I am using in my tutorial for a platformer, but in Java. Nice work man!

[@MariusHKz]

I was eager for this video! Thank you so much!

[@MegaFuze]

Holy crap you uploaded this at the right time because I was actually working on my own (fairly flawed) level editor. Thanks for the time save clearcode, you absolute legend!

[@ClearCode]

It took so long to get the level editor right! Hope it will help :)

[@N0OBB]

@@ClearCode i can learn from this and try to create my own (edited) version of it

[@davidfilep1106]

Oh my god. You are actually a human who did not born "speaking" python. Everytime I watch your videos I'm thinking "How the fuck is this guy so good?!" It feels good to see it takes time for even you to get things right and working. Of course nobody is gonna upload a video about something they did not figure out yet but some of these tutorials really take my will to code or even live away lol. Whilst it has tremendous educational value it also makes me feel like I'm dumb. Keep it up mate!@@ClearCode

[@MarcusBerge-gx4ll]

Great video as always! I love your content! In the "get_current_cell" method in your editor, an alternative option to solve the coordinate problem, could be to just use floor division. That way, you dont have to use an if-statement, and the code would look a bit cleaner.

[@user-on3sw4un6x]

Your videos are wonderful. You have done a very good job. Well done!!!!

[@fphenix]

For those wondering why the pearl does not always spawn (around 9:00:00) for some versions of Python or pygame (In Python 3.11.2 and pygame 2.5.2), do NOT use the groups()[0] as a Pearl parameter to get the all_sprites group. For exemple pass it explicitly through the Shell arguments from Level. It seems the groups() does NOT keep the ordering, hence all_sprites is not always [0].

[@quilmatic]

thanks for sharing! I was wondering why the pearls wouldn't spawn consistently.

[@dafxer]

True, I found this odd sprite group ordering bahaviour in PYdew Valley tutorial kzbin.info/www/bejne/imWsiWZsqLWSZsU, when creating and displaying apples on the trees. It took me some time to find why apples was sometimes rendered and sometimes not.

[@dafxer]

So there are 2 solutions, first is explicitly pass all_sprites, and second is to override pygame.sprite.Group and add name parameter and self.name attribute like so: self.all_sprites = pygame.sprite.Group(name="all_sprites") In this scenario, you can target respective group not by self.groups[0], but with use of for group in self.groups: if group name == "all_sprites" : .... and so on :-)

[@TriggerHappyRC1]

Thank you! This should have a lot more upvotes...

[@blackholesun4942]

Thank you I had the same issue

[@jkazulyblanco]

excellent tutorial, I hope that soon I will be able to master all the knowledge that you teach

[@user-gz5bs6qf7o]

Only one word 'AMAZING'

[@Neceros]

Fantastic work. Bravo

[@kawaisonayatsu]

nice and excellent tutorial. clearly and elaborate.

[@ClearCode]

Thank you so much :)

[@Loukassosial]

You are crazy... It's an awesome tutorial and you prolly put your whole soul in it ! GG

[@git_27]

Thank you so much for the tutorials.

[@AsukaJinQiao]

Well Done! Thanks!

[@Smurfis]

Years ago I was asking to make games some old IT guy at my school recommended python I didn’t think it had the capability but you’ve shown true commitment

[@artems5802]

Thank you very much. I am in love with your channel

[@FabioRotondo]

Hello Christian, just stumbled upon on this course and I immediately bought your two courses on Udemy 🙂 Thank you for this great course. I am a Python veteran (I use it since 1997) and I have develop some mini games with PyGame, but seeing your approach on some solutions is a great resource! Please, make more content on Godot (as your other Udemy course does) which I think is growing very strong! Ciao!

[@ClearCode]

Hey, thank you so much, I will make lots of Godot stuff once version 4 is out. Once that is out I will also retire the Godot udemy course, so I'm afraid you won't get much use out of that one. (you can get your money back for 30 days)

[@josephhomawoo7764]

Thanks Clear Code!

[@muralidharan.m645]

Bro, this is awesome 😎💥

[@MadladGuy]

These videos are amazing

[@godispotato8335]

Eu adoro seu conteudo cara! Parabens pelo seu trabalho!!! (Portuguese)

[@PapitaMC]

Great!!! thanks!!!

[@paolo_mrtt]

clear code you're the best !

[@BombasticTom492]

cool artstyle

[@TasteDaRDX]

Thanks Cris for another incredible tutorial, your hard work is much appreciated. Just one question, how do I save the level so I can keep working on it or playing it another day? In other words, how do I make level 1, then 2, etc.?

[@rrahll]

Awesome! Thanks! You are the best ;)

[@guillaumelanteri5052]

Thank you for this video

[@bivamshukhadka8953]

I really wish I could financially support you!!! Your channel is goldmine for programming.

[@pisuuvillarc]

I'm looking for this man

[@fphenix]

This is the third long tutorial of yours I follow and I really enjoy them. The quality is great. One thing I noticed so far, if I may, is that using the modulo operator would simplify the code and the explanation. For exemple here, around 37:00, the grid can be done with: for col in range(cols): x = (self.origin.x % TILE_SIZE) + (col * TILE_SIZE) pygame.draw.line(self.display_surface, LINE_COLOR, (x, 0), (x, WINDOW_HEIGHT)) and same for rows (no need for the "offset_vector")

[@ClearCode]

I should have also used it for the animations! My brain somehow doesn't like modulo, one of my new years resolutions is to use it more :D Also, glad to hear you like the tutorials :)

[@ouuv8607]

wow you deserve so much more

[@CustomIcon]

really helped me a lot to learn about working with gui. next up please make one for pygame with moderngl (opengl bindings for python)

[@damus6665]

10 hours???? I LOVE YOU

[@miraculousCheese]

Hey mate, i love your videos and follow them along. I learned so much through your videos but i sometimes keep struggling to find the right way to think about stuff. i'm not copy & pasting your stuff i always google if i don't understand something but if i have to do something like this from scratch by my own it's really hard. do you have any tips how to get there faster? or is just doing and time will tell?

[@limeedhot]

i learned python by just following these then branching off a little bit i kept getting errors and then i googled up what they meant and then yes time will get you there you said this 4 months ago and i did not realize this until i wrote the comment i hope you have learned python

[@lock_9983]

Re belicooo! Saludo desde Colombia

[@Dragoonmaster999]

You're incredible.

[@ashvath4greninja]

Respect to you and thank you.

[@visintel]

1:55:49 you can avoid if statements by using math.floor. The floor function will round down to minus infinity which will round down -0.5 to -1 for example.

[@yisus]

I did that part using integer division and I didn't have to use if statements def get_cell(self, pos): return (pos[0] - int(self.origin.x)) // TILE_SIZE, (pos[1] - int(self.origin.y)) // TILE_SIZE

[@fphenix]

I noticed something interesting around 1:54:40: In the get_current_cell() method this is what I did before looking at your solution: col, row = distance_to_origin // TILE_SIZE #(vector integer-divided by a scalar) col, row = int(col), int(row) #get rid of float I then noticed that I did NOT have the double (0, 0) cell you got by doing "int(x / TILE_SIZE)". And indeed, the '//' is also called 'floor division' so the result gets rounded down. Sure enough: int(-10.71 // 64) = -1 ; whereas int(-10.71 / 64) = 0 So the '//' is a pretty elegant solution to fix the issue there.

[@quilmatic]

I also noticed this as well, thank for sharing!

[@vinni_codes]

I clicked on the video looking for bronze, and I found it was gold. the perfect tutorial

[@neoXXquick]

Amazing tutorials pls dont stop... i know its a lot of time and effort.. but...

[@Sekiraw-911]

For anyone wondering how to save and load maps, I've made a bit changes to the code so you can save and load your maps: def load_grid(self): grid = {(6, 3): 4, (7, 3): 4, (7, 4): 4, (8, 4): 4, (9, 5): 4, (10, 5): 4, (11, 5): 4, (12, 5): 4, (13, 5): 4, (14, 4): 4, (13, 4): 4, (12, 4): 4, (11, 4): 4, (10, 4): 4, (9, 6): 4, (9, 7): 4, (10, 7): 4, (6, 8): 2, (7, 8): 2, (8, 8): 2, (9, 8): 2, (10, 8): 2, (11, 8): 2, (12, 8): 2, (8, 6): 8, (12, 7): 8} for element in grid.items(): current_cell, object_id = element[0], element[1] if EDITOR_DATA[object_id]['type'] == 'tile': self.canvas_data[current_cell] = CanvasTile(object_id) self.check_neighbors(current_cell) def save_grid(self): res = {obj[0]: obj[1].tile_id for obj in self.canvas_data.items()} print(res) I binded these to keys to make them work, the save_grid just prints out the current grid that you can save as you want and the load_grid loads the grid to the editor, it is not much but I hope I was able to help someone.

[@8-bitavatar696]

Appreciate this. I sort of got it working..I think. You put both of these methods in the Editor Class and the key bindings in the loop method?

[@Sekiraw-911]

@@8-bitavatar696 The objects won’t be saved, so you need to make a method for that similar to this and save that result into a different .pickle file and on the load, you read them both

[@Sekiraw-911]

@@8-bitavatar696 You can store the values in .pickle files and read from that

[@Sekiraw-911]

@@8-bitavatar696 if you send me and email or something I can send you the upgraded version

[@8-bitavatar696]

@@Sekiraw-911 I sent ya one, thanks.

[@justlittleone3326]

Finally you post new video😂

[@oscarlopeztorres6842]

New suscriptor 👍🏻

[@gorlix]

wow, didnt know that python is capable of this! slamming a like

[@brandonjacksoon]

As a suggestion for the future projects: City building game, survival game or something like Foreger.

[@ClearCode]

next one will be Doom :)

[@chigstardan7285]

@@ClearCode I would love to see how you explain raycasting to make doom render environment other tutorials just seem to rush

[@Ton....]

respect for this video god damn

[@sungurcan3728]

Is there a pyhton code which is able to detect some colors around a point determined on an image.For example it will say that "there is yellow color at a 2 cm distance from your point." Thanks

[@damus6665]

We want more pygame tutorials!!

[@flioink]

OK, nice one - sat through the whole thing. Everything works except the "bg" palms keep popping on the foreground during the gameplay portion(workd fine in the editor), for some reason. Can't say I picked up exactly 100% but definitely improved my overall understanding of the topic.

[@hydrochloricgamer4521]

Coder Space and you are the best

[@LukeManiac]

CRAZY!

[@user-jn9gz4nk8x]

hey, please, tell us about surface opacity (smooth appearance and disappearance). I didn't find any information on this on the internet. Thank you.

[@migasgt638]

Just a question, where do you get all these images for the characters, environment, etc??

[@ClearCode]

opengameart and itch.io have lots of resources you can use for free.

[@migasgt638]

@@ClearCode Tysm! Ur videos are awesome btw

[@PenguinBuster0725]

Bro this is awesome and also can u tell me whats the cool music on the start

[@ClearCode]

It is called "on the offensive" by Ted Kerr / Wolfgang, you can find it here: opengameart.org/content/8-bit-theme-on-the-offensive

[@d4rksoci3ty]

Amazing can’t wait to tackle this. What laptop would be best for these kind of projects? I’m really wanting to buy a macbook , one with 16gb ram and 1tb storage

[@alvarocubi]

Even with a very cheap laptop of much lower specs that you mention you would have no problem running these type of projects, don't worry

[@d4rksoci3ty]

@@alvarocubi cool thank you Álvaro

[@rushtanu1108]

I love ur videos, and I greatly appreciate them! Can you do a Pac Man game next? Thank you in advance.

[@elliottlysyshyn3690]

Hey! Great video, I've used you for all my learning on pygame and managed to create my own project almost entirely on my own thanks to you! I've been following along this video and just needed a little clarification on one thing: what is the self doing that we keep calling? Where is it coming from and why are we using it? Is it just a variable? Or a way of running the commands! Anyone that knows help would be greatly appreciated!

[@griffin-leonard]

When you have a class in Python, self refers to that class from within the class itself. For example, if I make an instance of a class called Example, I'd write something like: obj = Example() To call the class's draw method, I'd write obj.draw() I could write something like Example().draw() But if I'm inside of another class method, like update, you call it using self because there isn't a specific instance of Example yet to call. So I'd write self.draw() Self can access attributes (variables stored in that object, usually declared in the class's __init__ method) and methods (functions belonging to a class, which will almost always take self as the first argument) If you're still confused look up a video on Python classes or object oriented programming (oop)

[@magickaito]

Thanks!

[@magickaito]

Just figure out how to donate and I really want to say thank you for your pygame tutorials. I really enjoyed learning from them. Keep up with your great works!!

[@ClearCode]

Thank you so much! And super happy to hear that you enjoy the tutorials :)

[@chiragyadav5573]

It would be amazing if you released an blooper series where for some time you are being frustrated doing bug fixing/hunting

[@Victor-ig3dn]

Hello Clear code. In first thank you for the video ! How can I get sprites sets with the coding convention A [...] ABCDEF. Do I have to do everything by hand? How did you do it?

[@abdelfattahhilmi5213]

if this is the quality of the free tutorial, I wonder how amazing the udemy course would be

[@jackscheiber4588]

38:52, could you use %64 to find the offset? Like 128 becomes 0, 259 becomes 3? That seems easier to me.

[@pollefevre817]

I was trying to find a comment speaking about it because it was itching me a bit :D

[@flosrv3194]

Sir your videos are amazing thank you so much! I have finished the ultimate intro to pygame but whenever I start this one, i feel like it's 600000 lvl higher than the end of the intro to pygame. I wish to learn the Zelda, SV and this Mario. In which order do you advice me to watch them?

[@ClearCode]

I would recommend: 1. ultimate intro 2. delta time 3. collisions 4. Tiled And then the larger projects like Zelda or Mario Maker

[@flosrv3194]

Thank you very much! I'll follow this way!

[@flosrv3194]

@@ClearCode Sir i cant import stuffs between files, and i already try this init.py stuff, nothing works i cant succeed your tuto, these things dont work with me

[@williamm200]

bruh your going to be making some kids happy :D

[@choochooskillz1904]

Found the tutorial so useful for my current project. Could you help with how to attack and have a health bar

[@nlie3222]

Why are you so awesome?

[@user-ot9fp1vn7h]

really amazing, the best tutorial I've ever seen.thanks, Christian. but I want to mention a small bug, when I'm running the game in a not full screen window, of course in the playing level mode, if I try to move the window, the game would turn into a sky mode, only the player with the sea, no other objects. it seems the player has fallen down in loop. can you found out whats the problem? thanks

[@derarmallah5139]

Thank you for the grate work. How can i save and load the maps i create?

[@AndrewKramerenko]

Dude you are a genius + cool guy, thanks!

[@therealblurrybarber]

Experiencing some weirdness with the animations. Idk if it's a Linux thing, or what. The animations seem to cycle through almost randomly. For instance the idle animation of tooth is just odd. I can't figure out why. I tried your code from the project too. Same thing. Great tutorial btw. I love you take a second to explain WHY we are doing what we are doing

[@Neceros]

What do you use to record/doodle?

[@draugh1r219]

What program did you use for drawing on the screen? Or is editing magic ;) ?

[@ClearCode]

The app is called Epic Pen :)

[@guilhermerocha8322]

pixel frog really made a good assets, i'm using too

[@edwardobodo2268]

how did you make the music to this awesome video?

[@user-hz6ti8nh3g]

Hello. Thank you so much for such an interesting tutorial. Please tell me, when I switch to level, all the palm trees randomly move to the top and to the left. I tried to find out what was wrong with my code, but I couldn't. Could you tell me where I might have made a mistake? I followed your video, but it looks like I missed something. Thanks !

[@Okfo693]

I think you should do a behaviour tree implementation for enemy AI tutorial with pygame

[@davidhuang1769]

很棒！ (it means great ,awesome)

[@derar5555]

thanks for the great tutorial. is there a way to save the maps we create ?

[@derar5555]

how to save them as CSV files?

[@ClearCode]

when switching from the editor to the level are the data is passed around, you could export that fairly easily.

[@derar5555]

Thanks for the reply ... but what I meant here is how to save the maps we create using the program you've made " Mario creater." is there a way to save them so we can play them again ?

[@kalidas872]

​@@ClearCodecan u make a video how to save the map

[@duytrkhanh]

I WISH THERE'S A CHANNEL LIKE THIS BUT ABOUT DATA

[@ClearCode]

working on it...

[@duytrkhanh]

@@ClearCode OMG thank you, I love your content so much, I'm looking forward to it.

[@furykool]

I love your video's and I have you're course and its great. But I really wanna be able to scale images so I don't constantly have to upsize 16x images to 64x. I tried doing it by using the transform function in my Camera Group but none of my collisions work. Could you please make a video on that?

[@ClearCode]

Just blit everything on a separate surface and scale that one. That shouldn't affect collisions

[@furykool]

@@ClearCode Thanks so much!

[@sebastianjossang3007]

hey, awesome video. an idea: could you not use a modulus operator to do the same as you do here 14:52? in sted of line 53-55 you could just use: originOffsett = self.origin originOffsett.x %= TILE_SIZE again. awesome video!

[@mojimoose9464]

I have another error where from 2:28:10 and onwards , it gave me an error saying key error: 'X' , I've copied the code and everything seems right but it still gave me the error. The error says 'NoneType' object is not subscriptable