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Session 14: Milestone project work day 2 + demo day

Phase 6 — Pygame · Session 14 of 14

What we’re learning today

Today is the last session of Phase 6 — and the midpoint of the entire curriculum. First half: finish your game. Second half: demo to the class. By the end, you’ll have shipped your sixth milestone project, pushed it to GitHub, and you’re halfway through the journey from “no programming experience” to “shipping real software.”

You’ll need to remember from last time

  • Your project plan from last week.
  • Whatever you got working last week.
  • Your buddy for testing.
  • Git — commit your final changes today.
  • GitHub — push the final version.
  • Everything from Sessions 1-12 — you have all the tools.

Part A: Final polish

You have about 35 minutes to finish.

What “finished” means

Same three rules as always:

  1. It runs without crashing under normal use.
  2. It does what your plan said it would do — at least the simplest version.
  3. You can explain how it works.

If your game doesn’t meet all three, focus on getting there before adding anything new.

Polish ideas (Phase 6 specific)

  • Add a title screen if you don’t have one. (Session 12 pattern.)
  • Add a game-over screen with restart instructions.
  • Add at least one sound — bounce, hit, score, death. (Session 8.)
  • Background music that loops.
  • Use sprite classes for your game objects (Session 9). If you started with raw rect lists, refactor.
  • Reset on restart — make sure score, lives, positions reset properly between rounds.
  • Window title and size. pygame.display.set_caption( "...") and set_mode((W, H)).
  • Add a README.md with controls and how to run. Push it to your repo.
  • Take a screenshot for the README.
  • All commits clean. git status should show “working tree clean” before the demo.

Buddy test

About 15 min in, swap with your buddy. They play your game; you play theirs. Notice things they get wrong (control confusion, unclear win condition). Those are real UX bugs.

For Pygame games especially: hand the keyboard to your buddy with no instructions. Watch what they try. Their first instinct = your game’s controls need to match.

Push to GitHub

If you haven’t already: push. Today is your demo day, and your demo includes showing your repo URL.

$ git status
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Final polish before demo"
$ git push

If your repo doesn’t have a README, add one now:

# My Game

A Pygame game built in From Scratch Programming Class,
Phase 6.

## How to play

- **Move:** WASD or arrows
- **Action:** Space
- **Quit:** Esc

## How to run

pip install pygame python main.py

Push it.

Checkpoint: Your game runs the basic version of what you planned, your git log shows the journey, and your repo is on GitHub. This is the natural stop point if class is cut short — but today, demo time is next.

Part B: Demo day

Each person gets 3-5 minutes.

How a demo works

When it’s your turn:

  1. Show your title screen. That first frame is the impression. Walk us through the controls if needed.
  2. Play the game. Let us see it actually working.
  3. Hand the keyboard to a classmate if there’s time. Real users, real reactions.
  4. Show your GitHub repo. Open the URL in a browser. Show your git log --oneline.
  5. Tell us one thing that was hard. Bug stories, design decisions, things that took longer than expected. Maybe one thing that surprised you.
  6. Take one question.

What we’re celebrating

This is Phase 6’s demo — and the midpoint of the entire curriculum. Halfway through. You’ve shipped:

  • A Scratch project (Phase 1).
  • A Python turtle scene (Phase 2).
  • A Python program (Phase 3).
  • A multi-file CLI tool (Phase 4).
  • A desktop app (Phase 5).
  • A game (Phase 6, today).

Six. Most adults have shipped zero. You’re at six.

After everyone demos

Mr. Eric will say a few specific things about each project. Then we celebrate Phase 6 completion. Then we frame Phase 7.

What you accomplished

  • Sixth milestone project. Shipped.
  • Sprite classes — you wrote production-style Pygame code.
  • Game state machine — your game has real screens.
  • Public GitHub repo with a real README and (likely) a screenshot.
  • Animation, input, collision, sound — all of it working together.
  • You finished Phase 6. Half the curriculum is yours.

What’s next: Phase 7 — HTML, CSS, JavaScript

Phase 7 moves to the web. You learn to build things that run in a browser — anyone with internet can visit and use, no install required.

What’s different:

  • HTML for structure, CSS for style, JavaScript for behavior. Three new languages (well, technically — they’re all friendly).
  • The browser is your runtime. No pip install, no Python. Just a .html file and a browser.
  • Designing for anyone. Your work is shareable as a URL. Friends, family, anyone in the world can use it from their phone or laptop.
  • Visual design. CSS lets you make things look the way you want — colors, fonts, layouts, animations.
  • JavaScript ≠ Python. Different syntax. Same ideas (variables, functions, loops, classes). The mental model from Phase 3 still applies.

You’ll build:

  • Static pages.
  • Interactive single-page apps.
  • A canvas-based mini-game (yes, browser games — the Pygame patterns transfer).
  • A milestone web project of your design, hosted on GitHub Pages so anyone can use it.

Phase 7 is longer than Phase 6 (about 17 sessions). It introduces the most languages of any phase. But you’ve got a strong foundation — every concept (loops, functions, classes, state machines) you’ve already met.

Bring your machine and your enthusiasm. See you in Phase 7.

If you missed this session

Two cases:

Missed only the demo half: Show your game to Mr. Eric at the start of next week’s class. Same kind of feedback you’d have gotten in the demo.

Missed the whole session: No big deal. Finish your game at home using your Session 13 plan, and bring it next week. Or just join us in Phase 7 — you’ve already shipped enough this phase to be proud.

Stretch and extension ideas

If you have time after demos, or want to keep building at home:

  • Polish more. Add features, more sound, better art, smoother animation.
  • Share your game. Send the GitHub URL to a friend or family member. Have them play.
  • Build a release. Tools like PyInstaller can turn your game into a standalone .exe or .app. Advanced — ask Mr. Eric.
  • Add controller support. Pygame supports gamepads via pygame.joystick.
  • Open source someone else’s Pygame project. Find one on GitHub, clone it, run it, modify it.
  • Save a copy of every milestone project. They’re yours. Six so far.
  • Read a Pygame tutorial outside our curriculum. Real Python, free YouTube series, official Pygame docs. Different teachers explain differently.

What’s next

Phase 7 — the web. See you there.