QuackQuest 🦆

🕹️ How to Play

• W → Jump
• Spacebar → Duck & Speed Up
• Start with 3 lives
• Goal: run as far as you can while avoiding obstacles
• The further you run, the higher your score 🏆

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🚧 To Be Added

• Tutorial / Starting Instructions → Intro screen to explain controls before gameplay.
• More Obstacle Types → Add variety for increased challenge.
• Death Animation → On game over (all lives lost), duck explodes into particles.
• Machine Learning Agent → Train an AI to play the game automatically once core gameplay is stable.

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📚 What I Learned

🎮 Game Development Concepts

Terrain Generation Logic

• Implemented procedural terrain with random variation (Minecraft-style).
• Used a world offset system to simulate an endless runner.
• Managed memory by pre-loading upcoming chunks and removing off-screen ones.

Sprites & Sprite Sheets

• Extracted frames from a sprite sheet for characters and obstacles.
• Used pygame.sprite.Sprite groups for easier management and collision detection.
• Built smooth animations by cycling between frames.

Animation Techniques

• Timed frame updates to control walking and jumping.
• Synced sprite changes with in-game actions for responsive visuals.

Game Physics

• Implemented gravity to simulate falling.
• Designed jump mechanics with controlled height and responsiveness.
• Added knockback/bounce effects on collisions.

Collision Detection

• Used bounding boxes (rect) for efficient collision handling.
• Fixed obstacle collision logic so the duck properly loses lives when hit.
• Fixed obstacle alignment, ensuring obstacles spawn correctly on terrain instead of floating.

Game Loop & State Management

• Built a main loop to update and render the game each frame.
• Implemented states: menu, running, and game over.
• Added UI for restarting and an interactive duck on the main menu.

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🐍 Python Programming Skills

Core Python Syntax

• Used loops, conditionals, and functions throughout gameplay logic.
• Organized code into reusable utility functions.

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)

• Designed classes like Duck, TerrainBlock, and Obstacle.
• Encapsulated behavior in clean, maintainable objects.

Code Organization

• Structured the project into multiple files (game.py, terrain.py, obstacles.py, etc.).
• Learned how to build and maintain a medium-sized Python project.

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🌐 Development Tools

Git & GitHub

• Set up version control for the project.
• Created a .gitignore to hide unnecessary files (e.g., __pycache__).
• Committed and pushed updates through GitHub.

🕸️ Pygbag (Web Export)

• Learned how to export the game using Pygbag.
• Successfully ran the game in a browser through WebAssembly.
• Understood packaging and deployment steps for web builds.