7.19: Game Over Screens

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Page ID: 14571

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def showGameOverScreen():
    gameOverFont = pygame.font.Font('freesansbold.ttf', 150)
    gameSurf = gameOverFont.render('Game', True, WHITE)
    overSurf = gameOverFont.render('Over', True, WHITE)
    gameRect = gameSurf.get_rect()
    overRect = overSurf.get_rect()
    gameRect.midtop = (WINDOWWIDTH / 2, 10)
    overRect.midtop = (WINDOWWIDTH / 2, gameRect.height + 10 + 25)

    DISPLAYSURF.blit(gameSurf, gameRect)
    DISPLAYSURF.blit(overSurf, overRect)
    drawPressKeyMsg()
    pygame.display.update()
    pygame.time.wait(500)
    checkForKeyPress() # clear out any key presses in the event queue

    while True:
        if checkForKeyPress():
            pygame.event.get() # clear event queue
            return

The game over screen is similar to the start screen, except it isn’t animated. The words "Game" and "Over" are rendered to two Surface objects which are then drawn on the screen.

The Game Over text will stay on the screen until the player pushes a key. Just to make sure the player doesn’t accidentally press a key too soon, we will put a half second pause with the call to pygame.time.wait() on line 14 [180]. (The 500 argument stands for a 500 millisecond pause, which is half of one second.)

Then, checkForKeyPress() is called so that any key events that were made since the showGameOverScreen() function started are ignored. This pause and dropping of the key events is to prevent the following situation: Say the player was trying to turn away from the edge of the screen at the last minute, but pressed the key too late and crashed into the edge of the board. If this happens, then the key press would have happened after the showGameOverScreen() was called, and that key press would cause the game over screen to disappear almost instantly. The next game would start immediately after that, and might take the player by surprise. Adding this pause helps the make the game more "user friendly".