Handling Too Many Game States

I'm after some conceptual assistance.

The problem:

I have a sequence of actions which occur in a turn-based game. A common 'round' might be something like:

1. Ask the player to PRESS A to move
2. Wait for the player to select a target location
3. Move the avatar to the target location
4. Display a short "You have reached your destination" type message
5. Wait for the player to PRESS A to continue
6. Move to the next player and repeat

The individual logistics of each task don't give me any trouble, but the overall conceptual framework for structuring this code, does.

I have a GameManager singleton which tracks pretty much everything, and I would like to keep most of the gameplay-type stuff encapsulated here, with individual units and such just data containers. Unless someone proposed an alternative, of course.

At the moment, I'm pretty much 'brute forcing' the solution:

switch (m_gameState)
{
case GameState.WaitForA:
...
case GameState.WaitForTargetSelect:
...
case GameState.MoveAvatarToLocation:
...
case GameState.WaitForAAgain:
...
case GameState.SelectNextPlayer:
...
}

In a short example like this, it's not that bad. But when I start introducing potentially repetetive and overlapping 'game states', such as the option to Pause at any time, or frequent requests to Press A To Continue, the need to wait for animations to finish, etc., it turns into spaghetti in my head and I end up staring at my screen for 20 minutes without typing anything.

I guess what I'm asking is: How would you recommend I manage my states? How should I divide them up into multiple, layered states? Should I make some super cool use of coroutines (just discovered them, love them to bits) to manage this? Does anyone have any in-depth game state examples they wouldn't mind sharing?

I'd love any anecdotal advice that could be offered.

Thanks for any help, it's appreciated.

 

I guess that's all in Update? Coroutines would simplify things massively. Your list could be written like:

Code (csharp):

1. function GameLoop () {
2.     while (true) {
3.         for (i = 0; i < numberOfPlayers; i++) {
4.             yield WaitForAButton();
5.             yield PlayerSelectTargetLocation (i);
6.             yield PlayerMove (player[i].position, target[i].position);
7.             DisplayMessage ("You have reached your destination");
8.             yield WaitForAButton();
9.         }  
10.     }  
11. }

--Eric

 

Awesome, thanks for the fast reply! I'll need to do some more reading on Coroutines to understand how they work. At the moment I've got a problem I'm trying to solve myself, but I can't see what I've done wrong compared to examples:

I have the following method. It is called once with StartCoroutine(GameLoop()). Every Debug.Log() prints as expected to the console:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.     private IEnumerator             GameLoop()
3.     {
4.         Debug.Log("GameLoop started!");
5.         Debug.Log("Player count = " + PlayerCount);
6.        
7.         for(int i = 0; i < PlayerCount; i++)
8.         {
9.             Debug.Log("Calling MainCamera.Instance.MoveToTarget(" + m_players[i] + ", 2.0f)");
10.             yield return MainCamera.Instance.MoveToTarget(m_players[i], 2.0f);
11.         }
12.     }
13.  

However, the very first Debug.Log() in this code does not print to console (this method is located in the MainCamera monobehaviour).

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.     // Move the camera to the specified player's position.
3.     public IEnumerator              MoveToTarget(Player player, float duration)
4.     {
5.         Debug.Log("MoveToTarget() called...");
6.        
7.         Vector3 srceLoc = transform.position;
8.         Vector3 destLoc = player.transform.position;
9.        
10.         if (duration <= 0.0f)
11.             duration = 0.0f;
12.            
13.         bool repeat = true;
14.         float transition = 0.0f;
15.        
16.         while (repeat)
17.         {
18.             if (transition >= 1.0f)
19.             {
20.                 repeat = false;
21.                 transition = 1.0f;
22.             }
23.            
24.             transform.position = Vector3.Slerp(srceLoc, destLoc, transition);
25.             transition += (1.0f / duration) * Time.deltaTime;
26.            
27.             yield return 0;
28.         }
29.     }
30.  

I can't see why the code isn't executing correctly. I'm expecting it's something very simple that eludes me.

 

Does the rest of the code execute apart from the Debug line at the top of it?

 

You'll need to execute the subsequent Coroutines with StartCoroutine too:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. yield return MainCamera.Instance.StartCoroutine(MoveToTarget(m_players[i], 2.0f));
3.  

 

Ah! Thankyou arzi, that fixed the problem!