console-text-based games

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

I am working on a text-based poker game.

I managed to get a working game so far.

Card, Deck, Player etc and Game classes

Basically, inside Game class, I create all objects and simulate the game play.

Now the problem is that all input/output is embeded in the code. This is a problem, as I d like to have a Model independend of view.

Whats the proper way to implement MVC with console based games? or the Game class is considered just a controller, and not part of the Model?

Thanks.

#2

Make 3 packages
model
view
controller

view will print messages(System.out.println) or build an entire gui. It doesn’t do anything else then drawing or showing your game on the screen/console.

model does the calculation and controller sits between the two and has alot of get and setters. Like an example collection of get/setters in the controller:

Public Controller() {
fView = new view(this)
fModel = new model(this)
}
// INPUT FROM THE MODEL
fModel.getFPS()
// INPUT FROM THE VIEW
fView.setInsertPress(boolean press)

#3

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?MvcIsNotImplementable

I find strict MVC is impractical for games, as theres a lot more overlap between model and view than there is in your typical buissiness app. Things like sprites and model geometry are both view (used for display) and model (used for collision etc.). Also, I’ve never heard the controller described as “has alot of get and setters”.

#4

I once implemented a fairly successful MVC for a game. It took a lot of work, but it was really nice in the end.

1 GameModel, keeps track of all game state and how to save/load that state.
2 AbstractView, abstract with two subclasses
2.1 EditorView, a simplified rendering showing different layers and so
2.2 GameView, no helper stuff rendered, and full particles and so
3 AbstractController, abstract controller class
3.1 EditorController, allowed for editing the model, and added new buttons to the swing panel containing the View
3.2 GameController, reads user input from the keyboard and runs the game rules on the game model

I had a lot of trouble separating EditorController from EditorView (you could edit most of the game with the GameView, and you could play in the EditorView), but it was possible. Figuring out that both the view and the controller could add stuff to the gui was a big help.

That said, it’s not really worth it.