Programming and Technology/Game Programming Patterns for Beginners

International Game Developers Association

This guide is intended for novice programmers who have a working understanding of C++ but have little experience programming games. It is a collection of programming patterns that will focus entirely on the structure of game programming, rather than any specific API like DirectX or OpenGL.

As game programming is truly a symposium of other areas of programming, you'll find that most of these patterns are used quite often outside of the game industry. This is just a selection of patterns which solves many of the challenges of game programming.

Table of contents 1 Overriding Concept 2 Traditional Patterns 2.1 Creational Patterns 2.2 Behavioral Patterns 3 Game Specific 3.1 Engine 3.2 Physics 3.3 AI 3.4 Graphics

[edit] Overriding Concept

This should be filled with a description about Coupling, Stability, and Orthogonality. Why engineering is important, and what patterns hope to accomplish.

[edit] Traditional Patterns

[edit] Creational Patterns

The Singleton Pattern - A structure for a unique object or sub-system in the game.

The Factory Pattern

[edit] Behavioral Patterns

The Command Pattern

The Model View Controller Pattern

[edit] Game Specific

[edit] Engine

Sub-Systems - A logical way to separate different systems in a game engine

Dealing With Heterogeneous Data Types

The Resource Manager

The Game Loop - The core of all games.

Frame Rate Independence - How to make sure your game always moves at the same speed.

[edit] Physics

The Scene Stack

[edit] AI

The Strategy Pattern

[edit] Graphics

The Scene Stack