Your first SFML game, Part IV: The main loop

We already had a main loop for our game, but it didn’t to anything:D.
Here we’ll modify it to make it work with our board and our userInterface.

We keep the usual SFML headers, and we add our custom classes:

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// main.cpp
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
#include <sfml /Graphics.hpp>
#include "board.h"
#include "uInterface.h"

We create the window and we add a frame rate limit. By The Way if you don’t want to use anti aliasing replace the appropriate lines of code :

Your first SFML game, Part III: The User Interface

We already have a fully working game. But… we can’t play it yet!! We have to decide how the game should work with the player… Well, I’ve already decided it for you
When the player clicks a column, it will try to add a token.
If the column has no more empty spaces, the player should retry in another column.
When a player has won, or the board is full. A click on the screen will restart the game. You can play again

To do these, we’ll have a class that will interact with the players.

We include board.h because we’re using the board within the userInterface class:

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// uInterface.h
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

#ifndef UI
#define UI

#include "board.h"

Your first SFML game, Part II : The board

Hello reader!

In this post we’re creating the necessary code to display the  game’s board. It should be very easy to understand, so if you have any problems or suggestions please make a comment.

The main loop :

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// main.cpp
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
#include <sfml /Graphics.hpp>
#include "board.h"

int main()
{
    // Create main window, using the best available resolution
    sf::RenderWindow App(sf::VideoMode::GetMode(0),
            "Your first SFML game: 4 in a row!");

    // Reduce CPU usage by limiting the times a frame
    // is drawn per second
    App.SetFramerateLimit(30);

    // This is the main loop
    // It will loop until you exit the program
    while (App.IsOpened())
    {
        // Here we process the events list
        sf::Event Event;
        while (App.GetEvent(Event))
        {
            // Close window : exit
            if (Event.Type == sf::Event::Closed)
                App.Close();
        }

        // Clear the screen with a color
        App.Clear();

        // Here you will draw all stuff in the frame buffer

        // Render the frame on screen
        App.Display();
    }

    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

If you compile this code, it will create a black window. This is the base of our code.

Your first SFML game, Part I : Introduction

Have you ever thought about creating you’re own super classic mario game, or you’re own zelda series? Well, you’re dream has come true… with SFML you’re about to create you’re first game!! To make it easy I’ve chosen to recreate the well-known game Connect Four. Ready??… Go!!

Before starting the game development be sure to have :

• A ready-to-code IDE, configured for SFML.
• and : A well C++ understanding.

Let the coding start!!

There are two main ways of creating this type  of games (board games).

• By drawing directly to the screen the components of the game (circles, lines, rectangles, etc).
• or, By using textures (images) and placing them on screen.

For the sake of this example, we’re using the first approach. We’ll be drawing a background color with circles. Three kinds of circles will make the whole : empty spaces, red tokens and yellow tokens. The outline of a winner combination (4 in a row) will be highlighted.

In the end, we’ll have a game like this:

Here you’ll find the Windows executable.
And here the complete sources, including a Code::Blocks Project.

The sourcecode is released under the zlib/png license.

To be continued…