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C++ Allegro Pausing The Game

Started by lukeymoo Aug 15, 2011 at 2:20 AM 3 replies 4.3k views

Original Post

Aug 15, 2011 at 2:20 AM

I've been searching all around, for the existence of a pause function in allegro, I have not been able to find one, and I'm left with the option of multi-threading, to test for a key input while drawing, and moving functions of allegro are disabled. I've even thought about going as far as something like this...


 class foo
 {
 public:
 bool paused;
 void init();
 bool test_paused();
 bool can_move;
 };
 
 void foo::init()
 {
 paused = false;
 can_move = true;
 }
 
 void foo::test_paused()
 {
 if(paused == true)
 {
 can_move = false;
 }
 }

This code is really not in my program, it was just an example of what I was considering.
Any thoughts?

fastcall22

Aug 15, 2011 at 2:27 AM

Pausing the game isn't Allegro-specific.

Hint:
If you read up on finite state machines, you'll find the solution quite simple:


 while running:
 process_events()
 update_game()
 render_game()
 
 update_game:
 switch state:
 on play_state: update_play_state()
 on pause_state: update_pause_state()
 on menu_state: update_menu_state()
 
 render_game:
 switch state:
 on play_state: render_play_state()
 on pause_state: render_pause_state()
 on menu_state: render_menu_state() 
 
 update_play_state:
 if pause_key is pressed
 state = pause_state
 return
 if game_over
 state = menu_state
 return
 game_update()
 
 update_pause_state:
 set_music_volume( 0.20 )
 if pause_key is pressed
 set_music_volume( 1 )
 state = play_state
 
 render_play_state:
 game_render()
 
 render_pause_state:
 game_render()
 render_pause_overlay()

lukeymoo

Aug 15, 2011 at 2:27 AM

Dang, so this could possible get complicated with porting issues eh ?

fastcall22

Aug 15, 2011 at 3:19 AM

What? No, of course not. Multithreading would have been more complicated with porting issues.

lukeymoo

Aug 15, 2011 at 3:31 AM

So the game would remain paused as long as the play is holding the button ?

But my game looks really, really similar in format to your pseudo code. It might not be as hard as I thought.

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