Presenting the Options

In all but the simplest games , we are still not ready for the player to start playing the game. The player will likely want to make a few choices before starting to play. What screen resolutions will the game use? What controls and keystrokes will the player use to control the game? What map, level, or scenario will he or she be playing? Will the player be loading a previously saved game? Will he or she be playing a single player game or connecting with a multiplayer game? The number of options that we give the player will determine the screens required to present the options.

If the game requires more than one option screen (our example game does not), we would require a state for each screen. The details on how each screen is presented will be covered in detail in Chapter 2. We will use several different styles of option screens (button oriented and Windows dialog based) to give us the tools we need to develop our own option screens. The code extract in the Looking at the C# section at the end of this chapter shows the control structure used for transitioning through the option screen states.

The most important options are the ones that lead into playing the game itself. Once the play game state is entered, the game engine itself takes center stage to control the play.