Using Windows classes and handles

To write games, we do not need to know a lot about Windows programming. What we need to know is how to open a window, how to process messages, and how to call the main game loop. The first task of a Windows application is to create a window. After the windows is created, we can do various other things, such as processing events and handling callbacks. These events are finally used by the game framework to display sprites on the screen and make them movable and interactive so that we can play a game.

Getting ready

You need to have a working copy of Visual Studio installed on your Windows machine.

How to do it…

In this recipe, we will find out how easy it is to use Windows classes and handles.

1. Open Visual Studio.
2. Create a new C++ project.
3. Select a Win32 Windows application.
4. Add a source file called Source.cpp.
5. Add the following lines of code to it:

      // This only adds the necessary windows files and not all of them
   #define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN
   
   #include &lt...