Pygame Keyup/Keydown

Question

I'm making a little Mario for my school's Computer Club. (well, as part of a team.) Anyway, I'm having some trouble with the "keyup/keydown" commands. Here's my code:

# 1 - Import library
import pygame
from pygame.locals import *

# 2 - Initialize the game
pygame.init()
width, height = 1280, 1000
screen=pygame.display.set_mode((width, height))
keys = [False, False, False, False]
playerpos=[100,100]

# 3 - Load images
player = pygame.image.load("images/totallynotgodzilla.png")
# 3.1 - Load Audio
music = pygame.mixer.Sound("audio/skyrim.wav")

# 4 - keep looping through
while 1:
    # 5 - clear the screen before drawing it again
    screen.fill(0)
    # 6 - draw the screen elements
    screen.blit(player, playerpos)
    # 7 - update the screen
    pygame.display.flip()
    # 8 - loop through the events
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN:
            if event.key==K_w:
                keys[0]=True
            elif event.key==K_a:
                keys[1]=True
            elif event.key==K_s:
                keys[2]=True
            elif event.key==K_d:
                keys[3]=True
        if event.type == pygame.KEYUP:
            if event.key==pygame.K_w:
                keys[0]=False
            elif event.key==pygame.K_a:
                keys[1]=False
            elif event.key==pygame.K_s:
                keys[2]=False
            elif event.key==pygame.K_d:
                keys[3]=False

        # 9 - Move player
        if keys[0]:
            playerpos[1]-=5
        elif keys[2]:
            playerpos[1]+=5
        if keys[1]:
            playerpos[0]-=5
        elif keys[3]:
            playerpos[0]+=5

Basically, the problem is that when I press a key down, it waits for the keyup command to happen before moving again. So basically I have to rapidly press down the buttons to move.

I deleted some of the code, so if something is missing, let me know and I'll tell you whether or not I have it.

Solution

Indenting problem. You need to test your key states in you main game loop not in your event loop. You need to UNINDENT your keystate test one level.

while 1:
    # do init stuff 
    screen.fill(0)
    # .... (all main loop init stuff here)

    for event in pygame.event.get():
        # test events, set key states
        if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN:
            if event.key==K_w:
                keys[0]=True
        # .... (all event stuff)

    # Indent moves back to main game loop
    # test key states here...
    if keys[0]:
        playerpos[1]-=5
    elif keys[2]:
        playerpos[1]+=5
    # .... (and so on)