Breaking down the game template
The best way to learn is by practicing. Examples are great, but there's nothing like getting stuck in and working on a real game. The game template provided will allow us to implement the systems that we're going to learn about in a real game as opposed to them being a collection of isolated exercises.
Familiarizing yourself with this template will not only help make the code examples throughout the book clearer, but also make the exercises at the end of each chapter easier. It will also allow you to use what you're learning to implement your own systems in the project once we're done with it.
Download templates
Before you start, download the game template so that you have the source code available as you run through some of the key points. The template is available for download on the official Packt Publishing website at http://www.packtpub.com/support.
We'll set it up shortly, but for now, let's take a quick look at some of its key features.