Summary

Although you've certainly included backgrounds in several of the program examples and games that you've developed throughout the book thus far, this hour took a closer look at the role of backgrounds and why they are so important to games. You also found out about the main types of backgrounds, and what kinds of games demand each of them. The remainder of the hour focused on adding background support to the game engine in the form of two new classes, Background and StarryBackground . You now have a few classes you can reuse in your own games, as well as the knowledge to create custom animated backgrounds of your own.

The next hour accumulates much of what you've learned throughout the book in an example game called Meteor Defense. If you're familiar at all with the classic Missile Command game, you'll no doubt appreciate the Meteor Defense game.