Quick game development with

C++11/C++14

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 About myself
● Computer Science student
at the University of Messina
● Autodidact programmer
● Interests:
– Software development
– Gaming and game-
development
– C++ and its evolution
– Open-source software
– Sharing my knowledge

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 About this talk
● Introductory part:
– Game development: why?
● Why C++?
● Why C++11/C++14?
● Live coding part:
– Preparation: goals,
compilers, resources
– Live coding: development
analysis/walkthrough of a
complete playable simple
game

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 Goals of this talk
● Encouraging
everyone to try game
development
● Demonstrating how
C++ and its newer
standards make
game development a
breeze

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 Game development:
all-around development experience
 Game development: why?
● Game development Mechanics
Design Style and feel
– Requires knowledge
Story and concept
and skills in multiple

Game development
areas Engine and
architecture

– Involves the Implementation Scripting and

customization
programmer with the Porting
and distribution
community
– Touches a vast Graphics
number of specific Resources Music
programming topics Sounds

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 Game development: why C++?
● Efficient: zero-cost
abstractions and “low-
level” code
● Portable: standard-
compliant code can
target many
architectures
● Widespread: huge
number of libraries and
resources available

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 Game development:
why C++11/C++14?
● Convenience, safety and expressiveness
– Initializer lists and uniform initialization
– auto, range-based for loops
– Lambdas, variadic templates, decltype factory functions
– override, final, enum class, explicit, nullptr
– default, delete
● Memory management (!)
– std::unique_ptr, std::shared_ptr, offsetof entity management
● Possible performance improvements
– constexpr, std::move, noexcept
● Other improvements/additions
– Multithreading library facilities
– std::tuple, variadic macros, <random>, <chrono> game loop timing
– Generic lambdas, lambda capture expression
– auto functions, relaxed constexpr, std::tuple::get<...>

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
Let's get started, then!
 Live coding: what is our goal?
● Our goal is creating an
arkanoid/breakout
clone almost from
scratch.
● Step by step, I'll
demonstrate how easy
it is to create a playable
game, in around 200
lines of code.

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 Live coding: what compiler?
● C++11 support is mandatory
– g++ 4.7.2 or clang++ 3.0 (or newer) fully support the
C++11 standard
● Some C++14 features will be used
– clang++ 3.4 fully supports the C++14 standard
– g++ 4.9 supports all the C++14 features we'll be using
● Standard compliance information
– http://gcc.gnu.org/projects/cxx1y.html
– http://clang.llvm.org/cxx_status.html

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 Live coding: SFML library
● To interface ourselves
with the input, audio,
graphics components
of our computer and our
operating system we'll
use the SFML 2.1
open-source C++
library available at
http://sfml-dev.org

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 Live coding: code and resources
● You can download the code and the
resources that are going to be used here:
– http://github.com/SuperV1234/cppcon2014

● The SFML 2.1 library is available here:

– http://sfml-dev.org

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 Info: game loop
● The game loop is a
continuously running Input
loop (until the end of
the game)
– 1. Get input Update
– 2. Update game logic
– 3. Draw game entities
Draw

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 Info: coordinate system
● SFML's coordinate system sets the origin in
the top-left corner of the window.
X

(0, 0) (width, 0)

(0, height) (width, height)

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 Info: ball movement
● By adding a velocity vector to the ball's
position every frame, the ball appears to move.

l ocity
ve

l ocity
ve

l ocity
ve

update update update

time
Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 Info: ball vs window collision
●
By checking if one of the ball's coordinates is greater or lower than
the window's bounds, we can determine if the ball is outside the
window.
X

ball.x + (ball.width / 2)

window.width

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
Info: AABB vs AABB collision
(top, left) (top, right)

(top, left) (top, right)

vertical overlap
(bottom - top)

(bottom, left) (bottom, right)

(bottom, left) (bottom, right)

horizontal overlap
(right - left)

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 Info: ball vs paddle collision
● Depending on where the paddle was hit, we set
the ball's X velocity towards the left or the right.

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 Info: ball vs brick collision
● We need to change the ball's velocity depending
on the direction the brick was hit from.

overlapRight

overlapLeft
Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 Info: class hierarchy
● This is the final class hierarchy of our game
objects.

Entity Rectangle Circle

(base) (mix-in) (mix-in)

Paddle Brick Ball

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
 Info: game architecture
● This is the final code architecture of our game
classes.
Game
Manager
Entities

Grouped entities

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]
Thanks!

Vittorio Romeo
http://vittorioromeo.info
[email protected]