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Game Development Patterns and Best Practices

You're reading from   Game Development Patterns and Best Practices Better games, less hassle

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Product type Paperback
Published in Apr 2017
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781787127838
Length 394 pages
Edition 1st Edition
Languages
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Authors (2):
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John P. Doran John P. Doran
Author Profile Icon John P. Doran
John P. Doran
Matt Casanova Matt Casanova
Author Profile Icon Matt Casanova
Matt Casanova
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Table of Contents (13) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Introduction to Design Patterns FREE CHAPTER 2. One Instance to Rule Them All - Singletons 3. Creating Flexibility with the Component Object Model 4. Artificial Intelligence Using the State Pattern 5. Decoupling Code via the Factory Method Pattern 6. Creating Objects with the Prototype Pattern 7. Improving Performance with Object Pools 8. Controlling the UI via the Command Pattern 9. Decoupling Gameplay via the Observer Pattern 10. Sharing Objects with the Flyweight Pattern 11. Understanding Graphics and Animation 12. Best Practices

The Command pattern explained


The Command pattern is exactly the pattern that solves our problem. The purpose of the Command pattern is to decouple the requester of an action from the object that performs the action. That is exactly the problem we have. Our requester is the button, and it needs to be decoupled from whatever specific function call will be made. The Command pattern takes our concept of a function pointer and wraps it into a class with a simple interface for performing the function call. However, this pattern allows us more flexibility. We will easily be able to encapsulate function pointers with multiple parameters, as well as with C++ object and member functions. Let's start off easy with just two simple functions that have the same parameter count and return type:

int Square(int x) 
{ 
  return x * x; 
} 

int Cube(int x) 
{ 
  return x*x*x; 
} 

The Command pattern encapsulates a request into an object, and it gives a common interface to perform that request. In our example...

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