Archive for the 'Games' Category

Creating a Blackberry Game - Part 6

Looking for part 5?

Let's Hear It!

Our game is almost done - the only part left is the sound (and vibration) processing. This is a fairly simple class as well - again, most of the low level processing is done already by the Blackberry. However - you may want to play with the methods in this class. We have functionality for playing a midi file - and we could also have functionality for playing a wav file as well, but I haven't included it. The reason - on my 8830, the sound engine (at least the way I was using it), could only seem to mix one sound at a time, and completely stopped the other sound if a second one was played. There may be specific methods to mix two sounds together that I did not research, or otherwise it's a limitation/bug of the 8830. So, if music was playing, and I then played a wav sound effect, the music would stop.

I overcame this by using the Alert.startAudio method. This takes frequency/duration pairs from an array and plays simple sounds with it. When this method is used, it does indeed mix the audio with the midi playing in the background, so I stuck with it. It makes for less sophisticated sound effects, but it helps us for now.

Additionally, I wanted to include vibration in the game, so I included a small method for triggering this off. Vibration is used for when spaceships explode, either yours or the enemy's.

SND.java

 
package com.synthdreams.GalacticBlast;
 
import net.rim.device.api.ui.component.Dialog;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.lang.Class;
import javax.microedition.media.Manager;
import javax.microedition.media.Player;
import net.rim.device.api.system.Alert;
 
// Sound engine
class SND {
 
    Player _musicPlayer; // Java media player
 
    SND() { }
 
    // Play a midi file for background music
    void playMusic(String passMusic)
    {
        try
        {
            // Set InputStream to a midi file included as resource, as specified by
            // passMusic
            InputStream in = getClass().getResourceAsStream("/" + passMusic);            
 
            // Create a media player with mime type of audio/midi using our inputstream
            _musicPlayer = javax.microedition.media.Manager.createPlayer(in, "audio/midi");
 
            // Ready the data and start playing it.  To loop indefinitely, we set loopcount
            // to -1.
            _musicPlayer.realize();
            _musicPlayer.prefetch();
            _musicPlayer.setLoopCount(-1);
            _musicPlayer.start();
 
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            Dialog.alert("Error playing music");
        }
    }
 
    // Stop playing music
    void stopMusic()
    {
        try
        {
            // Tell player to stop playing
            _musicPlayer.stop();
 
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            Dialog.alert("Error stopping music");
        }
 
        // Then release the data and close out the player
        _musicPlayer.deallocate();
        _musicPlayer.close();
    }
 
    // The Playsound method plays a simple combinations of tones to simulate a firing
    // noise.  This was necessary, as due to a bug or limitation of the BlackBerry 8830
    // (the phone I do my testing on), playing a WAV file stopped the midi player and
    // any other sound effects.  Player doesn't appear to mix properly (if at all).  However,
    // a midi file can be played while using the Alert objects startAudio method which
    // can play a sequence of tones, so this is what we've done for now.
    void playSound()
    {
        // A sequence of frequencies and durations (eg 1400hz for 15ms, 1350hz for 15ms, etc)
        short[] fire = {1400, 15, 1350, 15, 1320, 20, 1300, 20, 1250, 25, 1200, 35};
 
        try
        {
            Alert.startAudio(fire, 100);
 
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            Dialog.alert("Error playing sound effect.");
        }   
 
    }
 
    // Activates the phone's vibration functionality for a specific number of ms
    void vibrate(int passMilli)
    {
        Alert.startVibrate(passMilli);
    }
}
 

Nothing too complex at all going on here. You may wonder what all the player initialization methods are doing - they deal mainly with making sure the sound data is available and buffered before playing. Just call them in order and you're good to go.

That's All Folks!

At this point, you have all the basic functionality necessary for making whatever kind of Blackberry game you'd like. Your logic may have to be much more complex, and you may have to include additional classes to accommodate everything, but the basic principles stay the same. Also - all the classes used here are unsigned and available without a license from Research in Motion, which means you can make, play, and distribute these games for free.

Feel free to comment if you have any questions, or even suggestions! These were my own experiences and suggestions with creating a Blackberry game, but you might have your own! Thanks for checking out this tutorial, good luck - and most importantly, have fun!

Creating a Blackberry Game - Part 5

Looking for part 4?

Let's See Our Game

Now that our logic is done, we have a few holes in the program where calls are made to graphics and sound processing. By isolating (for the most part, as much as our program allows) graphics and sound processing from the rest of the program, it offers for a little more portability. In general, this isn't too big of an issue in Java since Java itself is cross platform, but even so we run into areas where certain libraries might be available for one setup and not for others (for example, our program in which we use Blackberry specific libraries, wouldn't be valid in a non-Blackberry environment). For systems where processor speed and memory are in ample supply (which are most systems these days - as compared to an MCU or retro environment when you're dealing with 64K of RAM), it's a good practice to isolate things out like this - it makes porting a lot easier (Think Windows -> Mac & Linux, or PS3 -> XBox & Wii, that kind of thing).

Anyway, game programming philosophy aside, let's dig into the graphics functionality of GFX. GFX is actually fairly simple since most of the low level graphic processing is done by the Blackberry itself. We don't have a lot of ways to get close to the hardware, which is a good and bad thing - but for us here, the built in graphics functionality of the Blackberry is good enough and saves us work.

Besides some initialization routines, the GFX class consists mainly of the process method, which takes a handle to the graphics of the current screen from Gameplay. This handle indirectly allows us to write to the screen memory through simple graphic methods like drawBitmap and drawText. The overall algorithm is to first write the background (aligned properly, it moves every update) to the screen, then draw all objects, then the score and our hero's health meter. There is some math for doing coordinate and dimension calculations, but everything is fairly straightforward.

GFX.java

 
package com.synthdreams.GalacticBlast;
 
import net.rim.device.api.system.Bitmap;
import net.rim.device.api.system.Display;
import net.rim.device.api.ui.*;
import java.util.Vector;
 
// The GFX class is our game's graphics engine with all the drawing routines
class GFX
{
    int _backPos, _backSpeed; // Background position and speed
    Bitmap _backgroundBM; // The bitmap for the background
    Bitmap _healthBM; // The bitmap for the health meter
    Font _gameFont; // The font used for drawing score and lives
 
    GFX()
    {
        // First see if we can get the BBCondensed font at size 16 for our game font.
        // If not, we just go with the default, but all Blackberrys should have this font.
        try
        {
            _gameFont = FontFamily.forName("BBCondensed").getFont(FontFamily.SCALABLE_FONT,16);
        }
        catch (Exception e) { }
 
        // Load the health bitmap from health.png
        _healthBM = Bitmap.getBitmapResource("health.png");
    }
 
    // Get current background position
    public int getBackPos() { return _backPos; }
 
    // Method that sets the bitmap for the background and sets the scroll speed
    public void initBackground(String passBackground, int passSpeed)
    {
       _backgroundBM = Bitmap.getBitmapResource(passBackground);
       _backPos = 0;
       _backSpeed = passSpeed;
    }
 
    // Primary function for the graphics engine, draws all the objects, text, health, etc
    public void process(Graphics passGraphics, Vector passObjects, int passScore, int passLives)
    {
        // Draw our background at the correct position
        passGraphics.drawBitmap(0,0, Graphics.getScreenWidth(), Graphics.getScreenHeight(), _backgroundBM, 0, _backPos);
 
        // Move our background.
        _backPos -= _backSpeed;
 
        //If we're at the beginning of our bitmap, reset to end
        if (_backPos < 0)
        {
           _backPos = _backgroundBM.getHeight() - _backSpeed;
        }
 
        // If we're within screenheight of the end of our bitmap, we need to draw another copy to fill in the blank
        if (_backgroundBM.getHeight() - _backPos < Graphics.getScreenHeight()+_backSpeed)
        {
           passGraphics.drawBitmap(0, _backgroundBM.getHeight() - _backPos - _backSpeed, Graphics.getScreenWidth(), Graphics.getScreenHeight(), _backgroundBM, 0, 0);
        }
 
        // Now draw each of our objects to the screen
        for (int lcv = 0 ; lcv < passObjects.size() ; lcv++)
        {
            passGraphics.drawBitmap(((OBJ) passObjects.elementAt(lcv)).getX(),
                                    ((OBJ) passObjects.elementAt(lcv)).getY(),
                                    ((OBJ) passObjects.elementAt(lcv)).getBitmap().getWidth(),
                                    ((OBJ) passObjects.elementAt(lcv)).getBitmap().getHeight(),
                                    ((OBJ) passObjects.elementAt(lcv)).getBitmap(),
                                    0, 0);
        }
 
        // Draw score
        String zeroPad;
 
        // We want to pad the score with 0s
        zeroPad = "";
        if (passScore < 10000)
          zeroPad += "0";
        if (passScore < 1000)
          zeroPad += "0";
        if (passScore < 100)
          zeroPad += "0";
        if (passScore < 10)
          zeroPad += "0";
 
        // Draw score and lives in white with the game font
        passGraphics.setColor(0xFFFFFF);
        passGraphics.setFont(_gameFont);
        passGraphics.drawText("Score: " + zeroPad + passScore, Graphics.getScreenWidth()-93, 2);
        passGraphics.drawText("Lives: " + passLives, 7, Graphics.getScreenHeight() - 20);
 
        //Draw health, with width dependent on hero's life
        if (((OBJ) passObjects.elementAt(0)).getLife() > 0)
            passGraphics.drawBitmap(7, 7, _healthBM.getWidth() * ((OBJ) passObjects.elementAt(0)).getLife() / 5, _healthBM.getHeight(), _healthBM, 0, 0);
    }
 
}
 

As can be seen, nothing major happening here. The only weird part is how we draw the background. We basically have a long bitmap that scrolls in the background. When it hits the end of the bitmap, it needs to repeat it. It does this by continuing to scroll the original bitmap, and then filling in the whitespace with a second bitmap, placed flush to the first bitmap. Since we're dealing with random stars, its hard to make out any seams on the screen. If you were doing something with a more ordered/textured background, you'd need to make sure the top of the bitmap flowed well with the bottom of the bitmap.

Graphics are done - you should be able to disable your audio calls and get a playable game at this point! It should look something like this (only with your graphics, of course)

Onto our final part, audio...

Creating a Blackberry Game - Part 4

Looking for part 3?

Cue the Objects

Just like Object is the root for all classes in Java, OBJ is the root class for all of our classes in our game that represent sprites on the screen. This is where object oriented programming really shines through for game creation. By setting up a parent class, we can assign properties that are common to all our sprite objects, like position, velocity, a bitmap, etc. Then we can define classes for each individual type of object, like a Hero class, EnemyDrone class, and Photon class that will extend our base OBJ class. This allows them to inherit common properties, and add their own that are specific to them (For example, our hero will have a properties for how many lives it has left, which no other class has, as the rest of the objects simply go away after being destroyed). Since sometimes we work with our objects as OBJ in a vector, we also have a "type" property that is simply an identifying string that allows us to easily determine exactly what our object is (hero, enemy, or photon).

In addition to our OBJ classes, we also have a few static methods that are designed to work with multiple objects as opposed to any single object. CollisionDetect will loop through all objects and check for bounding box collisions, while cleanObjects will loop through all objects and remove dead ones from our object vector.

OBJ.java

 
package com.synthdreams.GalacticBlast;
 
import net.rim.device.api.system.Bitmap;
import net.rim.device.api.ui.Graphics;
import java.util.*;
 
// OBJ is our root class for all objects, it defines behaviors and properties
// that are the same for all objects, whether its the hero, enemies, or photons
class OBJ
{
    // Objects can have different states, these are general ones
    public static int STATE_NORMAL = 0;  // Object is alive and functioning normally
    public static int STATE_HIT = 100; // Object just got hit, flash red
    public static int STATE_DYING = 1000; // Object is dying, show an explosion
 
    int _posX, _posY, _velX, _velY;  // All objects have position and velocity
    int _life, _value, _state; // All objects have life, point value, and a current state
    OBJ _parent; // All objects can have a parent (e.g. a photon belongs to the object that shot it)
    String _type; // Type is a string that stores what the object is for easy reference
    Bitmap _bitmap; // Bitmap to be drawn for the object
 
    // Objects are initialized globally with a position
    OBJ(int passX, int passY)
    {
        _posX = passX;
        _posY = passY;
        _velX = 0;
        _velY = 0;
        _life = 1;
        _value = 0;
        _state = STATE_NORMAL;
        _type = "generic";
 
    }
 
    // Setters and getters
    public int getX() { return _posX; }
    public int getY() { return _posY; }
    public void setX(int passX) { _posX = passX; }
    public void setY(int passY) { _posY = passY; }
    public int getVelX() { return _velX; }
    public int getVelY() { return _velY; }
    public void setVelX(int passX) { _velX = passX; }
    public void setVelY(int passY) { _velY = passY; }
    public int getLife() { return _life; }
    public void setLife(int passLife) { _life = passLife; }
    public int getValue() { return _value; }
    public int getState() { return _state; }
    public void setState(int passState) { _state = passState; }
    public String getType() { return _type; }
    public Bitmap getBitmap() { return _bitmap; }
    public OBJ getParent() { return _parent; }
 
    // Process, think, and damager are all specific to the object, so these are blank
    public void process() { }
    public void think(Vector passObjects) { }
    public void damage() { }
 
    // In our game, firing means shooting a photon and playing the zap tone, this is the same
    // for all objects
    public void fire(Vector passObjects, OBJ passParent, int passVelocity)
    {
        Photon tempPhoton;
 
        // If the photon is going up, start it from the top of the object firing it.
        // If its going down, start it from bottom of object firing it
        if (passVelocity > 0)
            tempPhoton = new Photon(passParent.getX(),passParent.getY()+passParent.getBitmap().getHeight(), 0, passVelocity, passParent);
        else
            tempPhoton = new Photon(passParent.getX(),passParent.getY(), 0, passVelocity, passParent);    
 
        // set X coordinate of photon to the middle of the object firing it
        tempPhoton.setX(tempPhoton.getX() + passParent.getBitmap().getWidth()/2);
 
        // Add the photon object to our object vector
        passObjects.addElement(tempPhoton);
 
        // Play a zap tone
        GamePlay.snd.playSound();
 
    }
 
    // Collision detection routine using an AABB test (Axis Align Bounding Box).  This
    // is a quick and easy test great for games with simple squarish sprites which simply
    // looks to see if the bounding boxes overlap in any way.
    public static void collisionDetect(Vector passObjects)
    {
        OBJ tempObject1, tempObject2; // temporarily points to the two objects being tested
        boolean intersect, check; // flags during testing
 
        // Loop through all objects in our vector
        for (int lcv = 0 ; lcv < passObjects.size() ; lcv++)
        {
            // Set tempObject1 to the current object
            tempObject1 = (OBJ) passObjects.elementAt(lcv);
 
            // Now loop from the current object to the end of the vector
            for(int lcv2 = lcv ; lcv2 < passObjects.size() ; lcv2++)
            {
                // Set tempObject2 to the current object of the nested loop
                tempObject2 = (OBJ) passObjects.elementAt(lcv2);
 
                // See if we need to check for collision (e.g. some objects dont matter if
                // they collide, enemy with enemy or fire with fire for example)
 
                // Assume we dont need to check
                check = false;
 
                // Hero and enemy would be something to check for
                if (tempObject1.getType() == "hero" && tempObject2.getType().startsWith("enemy"))
                    check = true;
 
                // Hero and enemy fired photons would be something to check for
                if (tempObject1.getType() == "hero" && tempObject2.getType().startsWith("fire") && tempObject2.getParent().getType().startsWith("enemy"))
                    check = true;
 
                // Enemy and hero fired photons would be something ot check for
                if (tempObject1.getType().startsWith("enemy") && tempObject2.getType().startsWith("fire") && tempObject2.getParent().getType() == "hero")
                    check = true;
 
                // If our check flag is set to true, and the state of the objects is normal
                // (e.g. an object in a hit or exploded state can't collide with something),
                // then lets check for the actual collision
                if (check && tempObject1.getState() == 0 && tempObject2.getState() == 0)
                {
 
                    // We assume the two objects collided
                    intersect = true;
 
                    // Left and Ride sides of bounding box check
                    if (!(Math.abs((tempObject1.getX() + tempObject1.getBitmap().getWidth()/2) - (tempObject2.getX() + tempObject2.getBitmap().getWidth()/2)) <= tempObject1.getBitmap().getWidth() / 2 + tempObject2.getBitmap().getWidth() / 2))
                        intersect = false;
 
                    // Top and Bottom sides of bounding box check
                    if (!(Math.abs((tempObject1.getY() + tempObject1.getBitmap().getHeight()/2) - (tempObject2.getY() + tempObject2.getBitmap().getHeight()/2)) <= tempObject1.getBitmap().getHeight() / 2 + tempObject2.getBitmap().getHeight() / 2))
                        intersect = false;
 
                    // If the objects collided, damage each one.
                    if (intersect)
                    {
                        tempObject1.damage();
                        tempObject2.damage();
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
 
 
    // Clean up objects that have died or are way off screen.
    public static int cleanObjects(Vector passObjects)
    {
        OBJ tempObject; // Temporary points to object we're checking
        boolean delFlag; // Flag if we should get rid of it or not
        int scoreAdd; // Aggregate points to add to user's score
 
        // Start out with no points added
        scoreAdd = 0;
 
        // Loop through all objects in our vector
        for (int lcv = 0 ; lcv < passObjects.size() ; lcv++)
        {
            // Set tempObject to current object
            tempObject = (OBJ) passObjects.elementAt(lcv);
 
            // Assume we're not deleting it
            delFlag = false;
 
            // Check the object's state.  If its been dying for 10 refreshes, its
            // time to get rid of it.
            if (tempObject.getState() > STATE_DYING + 10)
            {
                // In the case of our hero, the player has lives, so if the hero
                // dies, we need to check to see if any lives are left before
                // quitting the game
                if (tempObject.getType() == "hero")
                {
                    // If there are lives left...
                    if (((Hero)tempObject).getLives() > 0)
                    {
                       // Decrement the number of lives left, set state, bitmap,
                       // and position back to normal
                       ((Hero)tempObject).setLives(((Hero)tempObject).getLives()-1);
                       tempObject.setLife(5);
                       tempObject.setState(STATE_NORMAL);
                       tempObject.setX(Graphics.getScreenWidth() / 2);
                       tempObject.setY(Graphics.getScreenHeight() - 50);
                       tempObject._bitmap = Bitmap.getBitmapResource("herogame.png");
                    }
                    else
                    {
                       // The player is out of lives, lets destroy the hero (which will
                       // end the game)
                       delFlag = true;
                    }
                }
                else
                {
                    // Enemies only have 1 life, so they are set to be deleted, and we
                    // add their value to the total score the player got this cleanup.
                    delFlag = true;
                    scoreAdd += tempObject.getValue();
                }
            }
 
            // If the object is a photon...
            if (tempObject.getType() == "firephoton" && delFlag == false)
            {
                // Delete if off left side of screen
                if(tempObject.getX() + tempObject.getBitmap().getWidth() < 0)
                    delFlag = true;
 
                // Delete if off right side of screen
                if(tempObject.getX() > Graphics.getScreenWidth())
                    delFlag = true;
 
                // Delete if off top of screen
                if(tempObject.getY() + tempObject.getBitmap().getHeight() < 0)
                    delFlag = true;
 
                // Delete if off bottom of screen
                if(tempObject.getY() > Graphics.getScreenHeight())
                    delFlag = true;
            }
 
            // We need to check for enemies that are way off screen.
            // Normally enemies will swarm around here, but there are
            // also kamikaze enemies that will aim toward the hero,
            // and if miss, keep going forever
            if (tempObject.getType() == "enemydrone" && delFlag == false)
            {
                // Check each of the four sides of the screen, if an enemy is
                // past any of them plus 100 pixels its considered lost.  No
                // points are scored for these enemies though.
                if(tempObject.getX() + tempObject.getBitmap().getWidth() < -100)
                    delFlag = true;
 
                if(tempObject.getX() > Graphics.getScreenWidth() + 100)
                    delFlag = true;
 
                if(tempObject.getY() + tempObject.getBitmap().getHeight() < -100)
                    delFlag = true;
 
                if(tempObject.getY() > Graphics.getScreenHeight() + 100)
                    delFlag = true;
            }
 
            // If the delete flag is true
            if (delFlag)
            {
                // Remove the object from the vector
                passObjects.removeElementAt(lcv);
 
                // Set our temporary object to null
                tempObject = null;
 
                // If this was our hero object (eg location 0), then we return a -1
                // to communicate this back to our processing routine
                if (lcv == 0)
                {
                    return(-1);
                }
            }
        }
 
        // If our hero is still alive, we return to the number of points scored
        return scoreAdd;
    }
 
    // A quick method simply to ensure screen bound objects don't go off screen.
    // For now this is just our hero, but there may be other objects that function
    // like this.
    public void boundToScreen()
    {
      // If the coordinates are off screen in any direction, correct the coordinate and
      // set that velocity to 0
      if (_posX < 0)
      {
         _posX = 0;
         _velX = 0;
      }
 
      if (_posY < 0)
      {
          _posY = 0;
          _velY = 0;
      }
 
      if (_posX > Graphics.getScreenWidth() - _bitmap.getWidth())
      {
          _posX = Graphics.getScreenWidth() - _bitmap.getWidth();
          _velX = 0;
      }
 
      if (_posY > Graphics.getScreenHeight() - _bitmap.getHeight())
      {
          _posY = Graphics.getScreenHeight() - _bitmap.getHeight();
          _velY = 0;
      }
 
    }
 
}
 
// Hero object
class Hero extends OBJ
{
   int _lives; // The hero (the player) has multiple lives, different from other objects
 
   Hero(int passX, int passY)
   {
      super(passX, passY);
 
      // Set bitmap to herogame
      _bitmap = Bitmap.getBitmapResource("herogame.png");    
 
      // Set coordinates, velocity, lives, and type identifier
      _velX = 0;
      _velY = 0;
      _life = 5;
      _lives = 2;
      _type = "hero";
   }    
 
   // Hero processing
   public void process()
   {
      // The hero has a max velocity of 10 in any direction
      if (_velX > 10)
        _velX = 10;
 
      if (_velX < -10)
        _velX = -10;
 
      if (_velY > 10)
        _velY = 10;
 
      if (_velY < -10)
        _velY = -10;
 
      // Movement is simply adding velocity to position
      _posX += _velX;
      _posY += _velY;  
 
      // If the current life of the hero is less than 1, we check the state of hero
      if (_life < 1)
      {
 
        // If the hero is currently in a normal state, it is put into a dying state
        if (_state == STATE_NORMAL)
        {
            // Set hero bitmap to an explosion
            _bitmap = Bitmap.getBitmapResource("explosiongame.png");    
 
            // Set state to dying
            _state = STATE_DYING;
 
            // Vibrate the phone
            GamePlay.snd.vibrate(180);
        }
 
      }
 
      // If the hero is in an abnormal state (hit or dying), there is additional processing
      // that must happen
      if (_state > STATE_NORMAL)
      {
          // First, we increment the state by 1.  Non normal states are temporary and are checked
          // for terminate by seeing if the initial state value plus a certain number of
          // refreshes has been reached.  It allows the object to be in a abnormal state for 10
          // refreshes, 3 refreshes, however many necessary, and then continue onto
          // some other state, either back to normal or deleted.
          _state++;
 
          // If the ship has been in the hit state for more than 3 refreshes, set it back to normal
          if ((_state > STATE_HIT + 3) && (_state < STATE_DYING))
          {
            _state = STATE_NORMAL;
            _bitmap = Bitmap.getBitmapResource("herogame.png");
          }
      }
 
      // Bound our hero to the screen
      boundToScreen();
   }
 
   // Our hero's damage method
   public void damage()
   {
      // Decrease life (not lives) by 1
      _life--;
 
      // If life is still above 0, change our hero to the hit state
      if (_life > 0)
      {
        _bitmap = Bitmap.getBitmapResource("herogamehit.png");
        _state = STATE_HIT;
      }
   }
 
   // Our hero's fire method for when it fires a photon
   public void fire(Vector passObjects)
   {
      //Call the parents fire method, with a velocity of -20
      super.fire(passObjects, this, -20);
   }
 
   // Lives setter and getter
   public int getLives() { return _lives; }
   public void setLives(int passLives) { _lives = passLives; }
 
}
 
 
// Photon class
class Photon extends OBJ
{
 
    // Initializes like hero object, only has photon.png as a bitmap, and starts
    // with a program specified velocity
    Photon(int passX, int passY, int passVelX, int passVelY, OBJ passParent)
    {
      super(passX, passY);
      _bitmap = Bitmap.getBitmapResource("photon.png");
      _velX = passVelX;
      _velY = passVelY;
      _type = "firephoton";
      _parent = passParent;
    }
 
    // Photon processing is simple, we simply move the object in accordance to its
    // velocity
    public void process()
    {
 
      // Position = Position + Velocity
      _posX += _velX;
      _posY += _velY;  
 
    }
 
    // When a photon is damaged, it simply dies and disappears instantly.
    // This is accomplished by setting the state to STATE_DYING + 11.  Since
    // we put objects in the dying state for 10 frames before delition, this
    // immediate deletes it.
    public void damage()
    {
      _life = 0;
      _state = STATE_DYING+11;
    }
 
}
 
// Our enemy class
class EnemyDrone extends OBJ
{
   int _AIRoutine; // AI routine stores what kind of enemy this is, normal or kamikaze
 
   // Enemy initialization is like other objects, except we randomly choose what
   // kind of AI routine it should use
   EnemyDrone(int passX, int passY)
   {
      super(passX, passY);
      _bitmap = Bitmap.getBitmapResource("enemygame.png");
      _value = 50;
      _type = "enemydrone";
 
      // Statistically, 3 out of 5 enemies are normal, 2 are kamikaze
      if (GamePlay.rndGenerator.nextInt() % 10 < 6)
         _AIRoutine = 0;
      else
         _AIRoutine = 1;
 
   }    
 
   // Enemy processing is identical to hero processing, except enemies don't
   // have a hit state, since they have one life (not to be confused with lives),
   // one hit kills them, hence theres no need for a hit state
   public void process()
   {
      _posX += _velX;
      _posY += _velY;  
 
      if (_life < 1)
      {
        if (_state == STATE_NORMAL)
        {
            _bitmap = Bitmap.getBitmapResource("explosiongame.png");
            _state = STATE_DYING;
            GamePlay.snd.vibrate(180);
        }
 
        _state++;
      }
 
   }
 
   // The think method is where the individual enemy AI takes place
   public void think(Vector passObjects)
   {
 
      // If they've blown up, they can no longer think
      if (_life < 1)
         return;
 
      // We start off with a velocity of 0 in both directions
      _velX = 0;
      _velY = 0;
 
      // Grab a handle on the hero object so we know how to direct our enemies
      Hero tempHero = (Hero) passObjects.elementAt(0);
 
      // If we're in normal AI mode
      if (_AIRoutine == 0)
      {
        // If hero is to our right, set velocity to right
        if (_posX + _bitmap.getWidth() / 2 < tempHero.getX() + tempHero.getBitmap().getWidth()/2)
            _velX = 5;
 
        // If hero is to our left, set velocity to our left
        if (_posX + _bitmap.getWidth() / 2 > tempHero.getX() + tempHero.getBitmap().getWidth()/2)
            _velX = -5;
 
        // Enemies try to stay 40 pixels above hero
        if (_posY + _bitmap.getHeight()  < tempHero.getY() - 40)
            _velY = 5;
 
        // If enemy is below hero, they move up
        if (_posY > tempHero.getY() + tempHero.getBitmap().getHeight())
            _velY = -5;
 
        // Add a little bit of random movement in
        _velX += GamePlay.rndGenerator.nextInt() % 4 - 2;
        _velY += GamePlay.rndGenerator.nextInt() % 4 - 2;
 
        // Random firing, fire 1 in 7 times thinking
        if (GamePlay.rndGenerator.nextInt() % 4 == 1)
        {
            fire(passObjects);
        }
     }
     else
     {
        // Kamikaze AI is the same for as above for horizontal processing.
        if (_posX + _bitmap.getWidth() / 2 < tempHero.getX() + tempHero.getBitmap().getWidth()/2)
            _velX = 5;
 
        if (_posX + _bitmap.getWidth() / 2 > tempHero.getX() + tempHero.getBitmap().getWidth()/2)
            _velX = -5;
 
        // For vertical though, the enemy drone is always going downward at a faster rate
        _velY = 8;
     }
   }
 
   // If enemy is damaged, their life is decreased
   public void damage()
   {
     _life--;
   }
 
   // An enemy firing calls the Object's fire method with a downward direction
   public void fire(Vector passObjects)
   {
      super.fire(passObjects, this, 20);
   }
 
}
 

Now that we have our Gameplay and OBJ defined, we've taken care of pretty much all of our game logic. Now all that's left is the code to drive our graphics and sound processing. These classes are called, aptly, GFX and SND!

Onto GFX in part 5...

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