[Solved] Organizing Code

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

I am currently working on a simple game, using Slick2D, as a means of practice and I was wondering if someone can give me some advice on how I’ve set up my code. This is how I have it thus far:

AssetLoader - This basically loads the sounds and sprites. It also has a set of getters for these assets.
SoundManager - This basically handles all the sound playing and music playing.
UserInterface - This handles all the userinterface nonsense.
Debug - This is a simple class of booleans with getters & setters that are used to check for when certain debug functions are enabled.

Now, in the GameState class, the SoundManager object is created and is updated in the update method. The SoundManager gets it’s sounds from the AssetManager and handles when a sound is playing. The UserInterface object is also created and has a render and update method. The UserInterface gets all of it’s Images from the AssetManager; it also checks the Debug if any of the options are enabled so it can draw them.

Now I have a debug option for displaying the current track. The UserInterface will check the Debug to see if this is turned on. If it is, it will then check the SoundManager for what song is playing and display it.

So, does this make sense? Am I going about it all wrong? Should I break it down more? Any advice will be appreciated! :slight_smile:

Thanks!

#2

If you have multiple screens, like game start, options, the running game itself, etc., you better also have dedicated screen handlers instead of one almighty UserInterface.
For debugging, you might as well use an existing logging library.

#3

I didn’t even think to check for a logging library. Thank you, for the information.

#4

Tip: dont create complexity for the sake of it. (An unnecessarily complex Class-Hierarchy / including
huge Logging libraries if you just need a “Log” class that can print lines to a textfile)

Else you create lots of boilerplate code, and loos oversight of the important parts of the program.

#5

As for how I’ve set up the AssetLoader and the SoundManager, this isn’t over complicating it, is it?

#6

My code organization currently looks like this:

  • Core
    [list]
    [li]Textures list (class full of public static Tex (class which store informations about textures) which can be used in rendering)
  • Shaders list (class full of shaders ID’s)
  • Preloader (loads all texture and shaders data into Textures list and Shaders list)
  • Loop
  • Input
  • Logic (can read data only from input, almost every object and interface element is created there)
  • Collisions (if needed for the game, can read and save data in logic)
  • Graphics (can read data only from logic)
  • Audio (can read data only from logic)

[/li]

  • Objects
    Everything what is displayed in your game (except interface) - background entities, player, enemies, bullets etc.
  • Interface
    Name speaks all. I am using interface classes for everything related to interface, with exception of mouse cursor (controlled directly by core).
  • Libraries
    Storage of all “high-level” functions which allows me to do things like rendering, loading assets etc. using only one function.
    [/list]

This system works well - I’m not very experienced, but at the moment I have about 100 classes in my project and everything is still prefectly clear.

I hope this helps. :wink:

#7

Thanks for the insight. It’s pretty useful to see how other people setup their code.