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A complete, feature-rich, and polished arcade space shooter built with Pygame. This project serves as an example of a well-structured game, demonstrating advanced features like game states, particle effects, and dynamic difficulty scaling. The entire game is contained within a single Python file with no external asset dependencies.

• Classic Arcade Gameplay: Fast-paced, top-down space shooter action.
• Dynamic Enemy Waves: Enemies spawn in formations and increase in number and speed as you progress through levels.
• Player Power-ups: Collect drops from defeated enemies to gain temporary advantages:
  • Shield: Makes you invincible for a short duration.
  • Rapid Fire: Doubles your shooting speed.
• Visual "Juice": The game feels alive with responsive effects:
  • Particle Explosions: Enemies shatter into particles upon destruction.
  • Screen Shake: The screen shakes when the player takes damage, adding impact.
  • Scrolling Starfield: A multi-layered parallax background gives a sense of speed and depth.
• Structured Game States: A robust state machine handles transitions between the main menu, the core game loop, and the game-over screen.
• Self-Contained Code: The entire game is programmed in a single file. All visuals are drawn procedurally using Pygame's drawing functions—no image or sound files are required to run it.

• Move: Use the LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys.
• Shoot: Press the SPACEBAR.
• Navigate Menus: Use the ENTER key to start or restart the game and the ESC key to return to the main menu.

1. Python 3.x must be installed on your system.
2. Pygame library is required. Install it via pip:

   pip install pygame

3. Download the game.py file.
4. Run the game from your terminal:

   python game.py

The program is architected using an object-oriented approach to separate concerns and make the code manageable and extensible.

• Game Class: This is the central orchestrator. It manages the main game loop, screen setup, clock, game states (START_MENU, PLAYING, GAME_OVER), event handling, and calls the update/draw methods for all other objects.

• Sprite Classes: The game's entities are modular pygame.sprite.Sprite objects:

  • Player: Manages player state, including position, lives, score, and power-up status (shield, rapid-fire). Handles input for movement and shooting.
  • Enemy: Defines the behavior for a single enemy ship, including its movement pattern.
  • Bullet: A generic class for projectiles, used by both the player and enemies. It's customized on creation with a specific speed and color.
  • PowerUp: Represents the collectible items dropped by enemies. It has a type (shield or rapid_fire) and a limited lifespan.
  • Particle: A short-lived sprite used to create the explosion effects. Each particle has a random velocity, creating a dynamic burst effect.

• Game Loop Logic: The core loop in the Game.run() method checks the current game_state and calls the appropriate handler function (handle_playing_events, update_game_state, draw_game, etc.). This state-driven design prevents menu logic from interfering with gameplay logic and vice-versa, resulting in clean and predictable code. Collision detection and game progression (leveling up, spawning new waves) are handled within the update_game_state method.