Game Development Patterns and Best Practices

The trouble with switch statements

When first learning to program, simply understanding the grammar of the language is very difficult. Often, new programmers focus on the syntax of a function call or for loop and they don't even think about making reusable, maintainable code. This is partly because they jump into the coding without planning anything out. This is true for games as well. Often, new programmers want to get straight to writing the game and they forget about things such as user interface and pause menus. Things such as the window resolution, enemy placement in the stages, and even where the mouse should be when clicking buttons will be hardcoded. Here is code from one of the authors' first games. This was a section in the MainMenu ...