Collision detection without classes, in Pygame

Question

I am writing a game in Pygame and want to get collision detection working. The aim is that when an object hits another, the target object disappears. I want to avoid having classes for now, to keep things simple. This makes it difficult to get collision detection working, because the Rect method in Pygame assumes classes.

The logic I want to achieve is:

if object hits a target object
    target object disappears

What's the minimal code I'd need to achieve this?

Answer 1

I think you mean you don't want to create your own classes such as:

class Player(pygame.sprite.Sprite):
    def __init__(self, rect, image):
        pygame.sprite.Sprite.__init__(self)
        self.rect = rect
        self.image = image

Which is doable, but not a very good practice. With that in mind, here's how you do it.

Create a player sprite:

player = pygame.sprite.Sprite()
# size is 40x40, position is 0, 0
player.rect = pygame.Rect(0, 0, 40, 40)

# image is 40x40 grey block
player.image = pygame.Surface((40, 40))
player.image.fill((60, 60, 60))

Then add a block sprite that the player can collect:

blocks = pygame.sprite.Sprite()
# size is 20x20, position is 300, 300
block.rect = pygame.Rect(300, 300, 20, 20)

# image is 20x20 green block
block.image = pygame.Surface((20, 20))
block.image.fill((60, 200, 60))

With two sprites, pygame.sprite.collide_rect() can be used for collision detection:

if pygame.sprite.collide_rect(player, block):
    # move block to a new position
    block.rect.x = random.randint(20, 480)
    block.rect.y = random.randint(20, 480)
    print "You ate a block!"

The sprites can be drawn on the screen like this:

# topleft is the position of the top left corner of the sprite
screen.blit(block.image, block.rect.topleft)
screen.blit(player.image, player.rect.topleft)

Here's a fully working example.

Answer 2

Another approach (If you don't want to use sprite for whatever reasons) is to write your own collision detection logic. The logic will basically check if difference in x and y co-ordinates of each rect objects is within the delta. The delta is width and height of one of the objects capturing collision.

from math import fabs
def has_collided_with(rect1,rect2):
    deltay = fabs(rect1.centery - rect2.centery)
    deltax = fabs(rect1.centerx - rect2.centerx)
    return deltay < rect2.height and deltax < rect2.width