Book Image

Game Development Patterns and Best Practices

By : John P. Doran, Matt Casanova
Book Image

Game Development Patterns and Best Practices

By: John P. Doran, Matt Casanova

Overview of this book

You’ve learned how to program, and you’ve probably created some simple games at some point, but now you want to build larger projects and find out how to resolve your problems. So instead of a coder, you might now want to think like a game developer or software engineer. To organize your code well, you need certain tools to do so, and that’s what this book is all about. You will learn techniques to code quickly and correctly, while ensuring your code is modular and easily understandable. To begin, we will start with the core game programming patterns, but not the usual way. We will take the use case strategy with this book. We will take an AAA standard game and show you the hurdles at multiple stages of development. Similarly, various use cases are used to showcase other patterns such as the adapter pattern, prototype pattern, flyweight pattern, and observer pattern. Lastly, we’ll go over some tips and tricks on how to refactor your code to remove common code smells and make it easier for others to work with you. By the end of the book you will be proficient in using the most popular and frequently used patterns with the best practices.

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Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Title Page
Credits
Credits
About the Authors
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Customer Feedback
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Introduction to Design Patterns
Introduction to Design Patterns
Chapter overview
Your objective
Why you should plan for change
Separating the why and the how
An Introduction to interfaces
The advantages of compartmentalizing code
The problems with using design patterns in games
Setting up the project
Summary
2
One Instance to Rule Them All - Singletons
One Instance to Rule Them All - Singletons
Chapter overview
Your objective
An overview on class access specifiers
The static keyword
Pros and cons of global variables
What is a Singleton?
Learning about templates
Templatizing Singletons
Advantages/disadvantages of using only one instance
The Singleton in action - the Application class
Summary
3
Creating Flexibility with the Component Object Model
Creating Flexibility with the Component Object Model
Chapter overview
Why a monolithic game object is a bad design
Why inheritance hierarchies are inflexible
The Strategy pattern and the Decorator pattern
The Component Object Model explained
Performance concerns
Summary
4
Artificial Intelligence Using the State Pattern
Artificial Intelligence Using the State Pattern
Chapter overview
Summary
5
Decoupling Code via the Factory Method Pattern
Decoupling Code via the Factory Method Pattern
Chapter overview
Your objective
The Dependency Inversion Principle
The Factory method pattern
Creating a component and Object Factory
Architecting versus over-architecting
Summary
6
Creating Objects with the Prototype Pattern
Creating Objects with the Prototype Pattern
Your objectives
The Prototype pattern explained
Examples of the clone method in Mach5
Loading archetypes from a file
Summary
7
Improving Performance with Object Pools
Improving Performance with Object Pools
Chapter overview
Why you should care about memory
The Object Pool pattern explained
Implementing a basic object pool
Operator overloading in C++
Building the object pool for Mach5
Issues with object pools
Summary
8
Controlling the UI via the Command Pattern
Controlling the UI via the Command Pattern
Chapter overview
How can we control actions through buttons?
The Command pattern explained
The benefits of the command pattern
Easy UI with commands in Mach5
Summary
9
Decoupling Gameplay via the Observer Pattern
Decoupling Gameplay via the Observer Pattern
Chapter overview
How gameplay creeps into every system
The Observer pattern explained
Benefits of using the Observer pattern
Summary
10
Sharing Objects with the Flyweight Pattern
Sharing Objects with the Flyweight Pattern
Chapter overview
Introductions to particles
Implementing particles in Mach5
Why memory is still an issue
Introduction to the Flyweight pattern
Transitioning to ParticleSystems
Summary
11
Understanding Graphics and Animation
Understanding Graphics and Animation
Chapter overview
Introduction to monitor refresh rates
Double buffering
Triple buffering
LCD monitors
Time-based movement and animation
Summary
12
Best Practices
Best Practices
Chapter overview
Learning fundamental code quality techniques
Learning and understand the uses of the const keyword
Learning how iteration can improve your game and code design
Learning when to use scripting in a game
Summary

About the Authors

John P. Doran is a technical game designer who has been creating games for over 10 years. He has worked on an assortment of games in teams consisting of just himself to over 70 people in student, mod, and professional projects in different roles, from game designer to lead UI programmer. He previously worked at LucasArts on Star Wars: 1313 as a game designer. He later graduated from DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, WA, with a Bachelor of Science in game design.

John is currently a part of DigiPen's research and development branch in Singapore in addition to DigiPen Game Studios. He is also the lead instructor of the DigiPen-Ubisoft Campus Game Programming Program, instructing graduate-level students in an intensive, advanced-level game programming curriculum. In addition to that, he also tutors and assists students in various subjects and gives lectures on C#, C++, Unreal, Unity, game design, and more.

He is the author of Unreal Engine Game Development Cookbook, Building an FPS Game in Unity, Unity Game Development Blueprints, Getting Started with UDK, UDK Game Development, and Mastering UDK Game Development, and he co-wrote UDK iOS Game Development Beginner's Guide, all available from Packt. More information about him can be found at johnpdoran.com.

Matt Casanova has been programming indie games in C++, as well as mobile games and applications in Java and Objective C, for over ten years. For the last seven years he has assumed the role of technical director for his students. He specializes in 2D game engines and tools.

Matt was an instructor for two years at Digipen Institute of Technology's Singapore campus, where he taught The Advanced Certification in 2D Game Development. This was a six month graduate-level course that specialized in creating 2D game engines. He then spent five years teaching undergraduate courses such as C++, data structures, and game engine architecture for Digipen’s degree in Real Time Interactive Simulation in South Korea. He has helped dozens of student teams make successful game projects and avoid the pitfalls of bad code. He currently works as lead mobile developer at a software company in Las Vegas.

I would like to thank my wife TaeGyeong Lee for listening to me for months on end while I talked about this book.  I would also like to the thank Josh Wittner for constantly giving me technical advice and encouraging me to learn programming in the first place.  

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