CODEWITHSUNDEEP
actionscript-3
Joseph Wagner
Joseph Wagner

Reputation: 323

AS3 - Is it a good idea to make new .AS classes for ever object in a game?

I want to make new .AS files for each and every object in my game for the sake of versatility, dynamism, and organization. I mean, in the case of a shooter game, I want to make a new class file for every type of bullet with all of their unique properties all spelled out in their respective classes. I want to do the same thing for every type of enemy in the game.

This is all assuming there may be 10+ different types of enemies/bullets.

Some people have been pushing me to keep the values of each type of, for example, bullet in one class and then just change the variables depending on the type of bullet being fired. That doesn't sound too fun to me and I would rather just create a bunch of different class files and just push all of the bullets into a common array(which works so far), but I would really like to know if I have the right, or even good, idea by doing so.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 227

Answers (2)

BadFeelingAboutThis
BadFeelingAboutThis

Reputation: 14406

You'll want to use inheritance to make it cleaner and more flexible with changes. Then even on multiple projects you can just extend the same generic base class.

Start with a base class (or interface) - Bullet.as for example - and put all the functionality and properties that are common to ALL bullets in that class. Anytime you have groups of bullets that share the same properties, keep making sub-classes. So if you had multiple kinds of bullets that all explode on contact, you could have the following kind of setup:

public class Bullet {
    public function fire():void {};

    public property size:int;
    public property strength:Number;
    public property label:String;
    public property maxDistance:Number;
} 

public class ExplodingBullet extends Bullet {
    public property blastRadius:Number;

    public function explode():void {
        trace("Kaboom");
    }
}

public class BazookaBullet extends ExplodingBullet {
    public function BazookaBullet():void {
        blastRadius = 10;
        label = "Bazooka";
        size = 5;
        maxDistance = 120;
    }
}

This would give your bazooka bullets all the functionality of the class it extends. There are a great many benefits to doing it this way as opposed to recreating all the same properties and methods in all your bullet classes.

Upvotes: 1

Romi Halasz
Romi Halasz

Reputation: 2009

In my opinion, since bullets (or enemies, for that matter) represent the same family objects, it would make sense to have a common interface, or an abstract class, which is implemented, or extended by each concrete class. Is this a good idea? Let's think about it this way:

When you are creating the classes that will be used throughout your application, you essentially building an API. Good practice suggests that you should always program to an interface rather than an implementation. What this means is that your top-level classes, should not depend on low-level ones, but rather they should use abstractions. That way, the different-level components are loosely coupled and the overall code is more flexible. This principle is known as Dependency inversion, and is one of the five principles of the SOLID design.

The links provided should give some additional information on how to structure your code.

Have a great day!

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions