Jy0060: anatomy of a game engine

Table of contents

• Welcome
• Miscellaneous

Welcome

Click the link to view the material for Anatomy of a Game Engine , which I use in some of the courses that I teach atAustin Community College in Austin, TX.

This is a collection of modules designed to teach students about the anatomy of a typical game or simulation engine (sometimes called a game or simulation framework) .

The collection is built around the Slick2D Game library.

The Slick2D library

I chose to concentrate on the free game library named Slick2D ,(which is written in Java) for several reasons including the following:

• Java is the language with which I am the most comfortable. Hence, I can probably do a better job of explaining the anatomy of a game engine thatuses Slick2D than would be the case for a game engine written in C++, C#, Python, or some other programming language.
• Java has proven in recent years to be a commercially successful game programming language. For example, I cite the commercial game named Minecraft , written in Java, for which apparently millions of copies have been sold. Also, knowing Java is verybeneficial for those who might want to develop apps for Android.
• Slick2D is free and the source code for Slick2D is readily available.
• The overall structure of a basic Slick2D game engine is very similar to Dark GDK and XNA, and is probably similar to other game engines as well.
• Java is platform independent.

Applicable to other environments as well

Although the modules in this collection concentrate on the Java game library named Slick2D, the concepts involved and the knowledge that you will gain isapplicable to other game engines written in different programming languages.

Miscellaneous

This section contains a variety of miscellaneous information.

-end-