0/12Course Recap
This page collects the patterns and topics from all twelve games. For each one it shows where it is introduced, where it comes back, and which exam question it belongs to. It is a good starting point for exam preparation (see the project at the exam). Every session page also ends its material with a Summary table, which gives that session’s concerns and its answer to each.
Patterns
Section titled “Patterns”| Pattern | Introduced in | Also in | Exam |
|---|---|---|---|
| Game Loop | 01 Pong | every game | 1 |
| Update Method | 01 Pong | every game | 1 |
| State (game states) | 02 Flappy Bird | most games from here | 2 |
| Singleton | 02 Flappy Bird | 3 | |
| Command | 04 Sokoban | 4 | |
| State (entities) | 05 Pac-Man | 06 Super Mario Bros, 07 The Legend of Zelda | 2 |
| Strategy | 05 Pac-Man | 06 Super Mario Bros | 2 |
| Observer | 07 The Legend of Zelda | 08 Angry Birds, 10 Pokemon, 11 Geometry Wars | 5 |
| Adapter & Facade | 08 Angry Birds | 7 | |
| Prototype | 08 Angry Birds | 8 | |
| Component | 09 Plants vs. Zombies | 11 Geometry Wars | 9 |
| Type Object | 09 Plants vs. Zombies | 10 Pokemon, 12 Vampire Survivors | 8 |
| State stack | 10 Pokemon | 11 Geometry Wars, 12 Vampire Survivors | 2 |
| Service Locator | 10 Pokemon | 3 | |
| Object Pool | 11 Geometry Wars | 10 | |
| Flyweight | 11 Geometry Wars | 10 | |
| Dependency injection | 11 Geometry Wars | 3 | |
| Spatial Partition | 12 Vampire Survivors | 7, 10 | |
| Data Locality | 12 Vampire Survivors | 10 |
Threads Through the Course
Section titled “Threads Through the Course”Some ideas grow over several games. Following one thread is a good way to prepare an exam answer.
- Game loop & time: the game loop (01) → fixed-tick movement (03) → tweening (07) → the physics step (08) → a fixed-timestep core (11). Exam 1.
- Input: keyboard and mouse (02) → input as actions (03) → commands with undo (04) → picking (09). Exam 4.
- Data: assets as data (03) → levels as data (04) → enemies as data (07) → prefabs (08) → game types as data (09) → save/load (10). Exam 8.
- Entities: inheritance (06) → composition vs. inheritance (07) → components (09) → components vs. systems (11) → data-oriented design (12). Exam 9, 10.
- Architecture: coupling and cohesion (02) → rules apart from drawing (04) → events (07) → a library behind our own interface (08) → what components cost (09) → where new code goes (11) → what speed costs (12). Exam 0.
- Dependencies: Singleton (02) → Service Locator (10) → dependency injection (11). Exam 3.
- Testing: rules apart from drawing, and unit tests (04) → ghost strategies tested one by one (05) → components tested on their own (09) → a save/load round trip (10) → fakes passed in through dependency injection (11) → the fast spatial grid checked against the slow, obvious search (12).
- Collision: AABB (01) → circles, and what happens after a hit (03) → grid lookups (04) → tile collision (06) → hitboxes (07) → a physics library (08) → spatial partitioning (12). Exam 7.
- Coordinate spaces: virtual resolution (01) → window to game coordinates (02) → world vs. camera (06) → physics units vs. pixels (08) → screen to grid (09).
- Rendering: drawing & the content pipeline (01) → textures (02) → atlases, sprites & animation (03) → debug drawing (06). Exam 6.
- Performance: the fixed timestep (01) → Object Pool and Flyweight (11) → profiling, spatial partitioning and data-oriented design (12). Exam 10.
- GARCore: every game adds to the same core library. Each game’s README (in
gar-games) lists what is new in
GARCoresince the previous game.