So I want to program a simple game in Java - nothing fancy - using everything I have learned this semester from classes & inheritance, to swing, to concurrency [threads, etc] to stuff I've been fiddling around with regarding the use of the BufferedImage class, and other graphical stuff. I was thinking about doing a simple breakout type game. The thing that I am having trouble wrapping my head around is the best means of structuring the code. Let me TRY to explain: During the game, we'd have: - checks for user input [move paddle left/right] - animations [brick animations, ball animation, bg animation?] - the ball movement - checking for ball collisions against the walls, paddle, other bricks, and the bottom of the chamber, triggering a game over - the movement of items dropping from select bricks - the collision between the paddle and those bricks - knowing when to trigger certain SFX, etc So 7 things going on concurrently. What is baffling me is trying to figure out the best means of structuring it so it is all one fluid set of acts - to check all these things - without the game being a sloppy, laggy mess that I'd throw my keyboard at. I mean, I know threading should be involved here, but I guess my trouble is how to create a thread manager for them all and figuring out the best means of doing that efficiently.
