Your first game

Goal: a red ball you drive around the screen with the arrow keys. About five minutes, right in your browser - nothing to install. If you can read a dozen lines of Python, you can do this.

1. Write it, press Try it

Here is the whole game, about a dozen lines. Press Try it to run it live in your browser, then drive the ball with the arrow keys.

import picogame as pg
import picogame_game        # one-call setup
import picogame_input       # buttons
import picogame_clock       # frame timing
import picogame_shapes as shapes   # make simple bitmaps in code

# Take over the screen and get a scene to draw into.
scene, _, _ = picogame_game.setup(background=pg.rgb565(20, 24, 40))
buttons = picogame_input.Buttons()
clock = picogame_clock.Clock(30)        # aim for 30 frames per second

# A red ball — a 24px circle drawn in code, so we need no art yet.
ball = pg.Sprite(shapes.circle(24, pg.rgb565(230, 80, 80)), 150, 110)
scene.add(ball)

# The game loop: read input, move, redraw — forever.
while True:
    buttons.poll()
    ball.x += (buttons.is_pressed(buttons.RIGHT) - buttons.is_pressed(buttons.LEFT)) * 3
    ball.y += (buttons.is_pressed(buttons.DOWN) - buttons.is_pressed(buttons.UP)) * 3
    scene.refresh()
    clock.tick()

▶ Try it in the browser

That is the picogame engine (the native C module, compiled to WASM) running in your browser. Edit the code, press Run, and your change shows instantly. When you want more room to tinker, open it in the Playground.

2. What the code does

Only four ideas carry the whole game; the rest is detail you’ll meet later:

Line	Idea
`picogame_game.setup(...)`	Returns the scene you draw into (plus two helper buffers you don’t need yet, the `_, _` in `scene, _, _`). This one call hides all the display setup and clears the screen.
`pg.Sprite(shapes.circle(...), x, y)`	A sprite is a movable picture. Here the picture is a circle we generated in code; later it’ll be your own art.
`scene.add(ball)`	Put the sprite in the scene so it gets drawn.
the `while` loop	The game loop: every frame, read input, change things, then `scene.refresh()`. The engine redraws only what moved.

3. Take it further

Build on your PC. Want a faster local loop, or to work with your own art files? Run the same game in the desktop simulator: one git clone, then python3 sim/run.py.
Learn step by step. The tutorials build a Breakout, then a shooter, then an RPG, one new idea per step.
Get the mental model. How picogame works explains the engine in five minutes, so the next things you build make sense.
Put it on a device. When you’re ready for hardware, see Run on hardware.