This post is a portion of Part 13 in my on going series about 2D Game Development using the Allegro 5 library. These posts are in course order. You can see all of the posts in this course by clicking the “2D Game Development” button at the top of this site.
- 13.0 – Game States
- 13.1 – Implementing Game States
- 13.2 – Better Game State Implementation
- 13.3 – Finite State Machine Artificial Intelligence
Wow, Part 13! How time flies. Anyway, let’s get to it.
State-fullness
So far our games have consisted of a single mode (or state). They have been very simplistic and straightforward. You have probably noticed, however, that real games generally have many modes including a pause mode and menus. Achieving this is both very easy and very difficult depending on how you look at it. The creation of a simple state machine to maintain the modes of your game are very easy. Harder is the development of a good, well functioning system. Designing proper flow and intuitive controls can take a lot of time and planning. There is also the assimilation of understood standards. For instance, when playing a game I assume the escape key gets me out of the game. No one told me that. It is just an assumed standard. If a game doesn’t do that, I have to question their state design (also a part of the interface model or UI).
There isn’t too much I can say about states. It is much easier to show you. So with that, let’s get to the videos.