i am trying to make a "whack a mole" game in pygame, and my current issue is that my mouse clicks are not registering, but are giving me an error

Question

if event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONDOWN:
    if mole.collidepoint(event.pos):
        myTextScore += 1
        text = font.render("Score " + str(myTextScore), True, GREEN)

error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\Owner\Desktop\Coding\Python", line 37, in <module>
    if mole.collidepoint(event.pos):
AttributeError: 'pygame.Surface' object has no attribute 'collidepoint'

if you need me to post my full code, i can do that aswell. sorry if question is not writen very well

Answer 1

For every object you should create two items

• pygame.Surface with image
• pygame.Rect to keep position and size

and you should use collidepoint with pygame.Rect but you use with pygame.Surface

So it should

at start

mole = ... image ...
mole_rect = mole.get_rect()

later change position like

mole_rect.x = new_x
mole_rect.y = new_y

# or 

mole_rect.centerx = new_x
mole_rect.centery = new_y

# etc.

and finally check collision

mole_rect.collidepoint(event.pos)

And display as

screen.blit(mole, mole_rect)

---

Full working example.

If you click mole (white rectangle) then it moves to random position.

import pygame
import random

# --- constants --- (PEP8: UPPER_CASE_NAMES)

SCREEN_WIDTH = 800
SCREEN_HEIGHT = 600

FPS = 60

BLACK = (0, 0, 0)
WHITE = (255, 255, 255)

# --- main ---

pygame.init()

screen = pygame.display.set_mode( (SCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT) )

# create image with white rectangle
mole_image = pygame.Surface((50, 50))
mole_image.fill(WHITE)

# get `Rect` with size of image and set its position in center of screen
mole_rect = mole_image.get_rect()
mole_rect.center = screen.get_rect().center

# --- mainloop ---

clock = pygame.time.Clock()

running = True
while running:

    # --- events ---

    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            running = False

        elif event.type == pygame.KEYUP:
            if event.key == pygame.K_ESCAPE:
                running = False

        elif event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONDOWN:
            if mole_rect.collidepoint(event.pos):
                mole_rect.centerx = random.randrange(25, SCREEN_WIDTH-25)
                mole_rect.centery = random.randrange(25, SCREEN_HEIGHT-25)
                
    # --- draws ---

    screen.fill(BLACK)

    screen.blit(mole_image, mole_rect)    
    
    pygame.display.flip()

    # --- FPS ---

    ms = clock.tick(FPS)
    fps = clock.get_fps()
    pygame.display.set_caption('FPS: {:.1f} | milliseconds: {}'.format(fps, ms))
    
# --- end ---

pygame.quit()

---

PEP 8 -- Style Guide for Python Code

---

EDIT:

The same using class pygame.sprite.Sprite

import pygame
import random

# --- constants --- (PEP8: UPPER_CASE_NAMES)

SCREEN_WIDTH = 800
SCREEN_HEIGHT = 600

FPS = 60

BLACK = (0, 0, 0)
WHITE = (255, 255, 255)

# --- classes --- (PEP8: CamelCaseNames)

class Player(pygame.sprite.Sprite):

    def __init__(self, x, y):
        super().__init__()
        
        self.image = pygame.Surface((50, 50))
        self.image.fill(WHITE)
        
        self.rect = self.image.get_rect()
        self.rect.center = (x, y)

    def set_random_position(self):
        self.rect.centerx = random.randrange(25, SCREEN_WIDTH-25)
        self.rect.centery = random.randrange(25, SCREEN_HEIGHT-25)

    def draw(self, surface):
        surface.blit(self.image, self.rect)

    def collide_point(self, pos):
        return self.rect.collidepoint(pos)
    
# --- main ---

pygame.init()

screen = pygame.display.set_mode( (SCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT) )
screen_rect = screen.get_rect()

mole = Player(screen_rect.centerx, screen_rect.centery)

# --- mainloop ---

clock = pygame.time.Clock()

running = True
while running:

    # --- events ---

    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            running = False

        elif event.type == pygame.KEYUP:
            if event.key == pygame.K_ESCAPE:
                running = False

        elif event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONDOWN:
            if mole.collide_point(event.pos):
                mole.set_random_position()
                
    # --- draws ---

    screen.fill(BLACK)

    mole.draw(screen)    
    
    pygame.display.flip()

    # --- FPS ---

    ms = clock.tick(FPS)
    fps = clock.get_fps()
    pygame.display.set_caption('FPS: {:.1f} | milliseconds: {}'.format(fps, ms))
    
# --- end ---

pygame.quit()

---

The same with many moles - but some code could be done with pygame.sprite.Group

import pygame
import random

# --- constants --- (PEP8: UPPER_CASE_NAMES)

SCREEN_WIDTH = 800
SCREEN_HEIGHT = 600

FPS = 60

BLACK = (0, 0, 0)
WHITE = (255, 255, 255)
RED   = (255,   0,   0)
GREEN = (  0, 255,   0)
BLUE  = (  0,   0, 255)

# --- classes --- (PEP8: CamelCaseNames)

class Player(pygame.sprite.Sprite):

    def __init__(self, x, y, color):
        super().__init__()
        
        self.color = color
        
        self.image = pygame.Surface((50, 50))
        self.image.fill(color)
        
        self.rect = self.image.get_rect()
        self.rect.center = (x, y)

    def set_random_position(self):
        self.rect.centerx = random.randrange(25, SCREEN_WIDTH-25)
        self.rect.centery = random.randrange(25, SCREEN_HEIGHT-25)

    def draw(self, surface):
        surface.blit(self.image, self.rect)

    def collide_point(self, pos):
        return self.rect.collidepoint(pos)
    
# --- main ---

pygame.init()

screen = pygame.display.set_mode( (SCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT) )
screen_rect = screen.get_rect()

moles = []
for color in [WHITE, RED, GREEN, BLUE]:
    mole = Player(screen_rect.centerx, screen_rect.centery, color)
    mole.set_random_position()
    moles.append(mole)

# --- mainloop ---

clock = pygame.time.Clock()

running = True
while running:

    # --- events ---

    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            running = False

        elif event.type == pygame.KEYUP:
            if event.key == pygame.K_ESCAPE:
                running = False

        elif event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONDOWN:
            for mole in moles:
                if mole.collide_point(event.pos):
                    mole.set_random_position()
                
    # --- draws ---

    screen.fill(BLACK)

    for mole in moles:
        mole.draw(screen)    
    
    pygame.display.flip()

    # --- FPS ---

    ms = clock.tick(FPS)
    fps = clock.get_fps()
    pygame.display.set_caption('FPS: {:.1f} | milliseconds: {}'.format(fps, ms))
    
# --- end ---

pygame.quit()