Summary

In this chapter, we learned about some new C++ concepts, such as inheritance, which allows us to extend a class and gain all its functionality. We also learned that we can declare variables as protected and that this will give the child class access to them, but they will still be encapsulated (hidden) from all other code. We also used pure virtual functions, which make a class abstract, meaning that the class cannot be instantiated and must therefore be inherited from/extended. We were also introduced to the concept of polymorphism, but will need to wait until the next chapter to use it in our game.

In the next chapter, we will add some major functionality to the game. By the end of the next chapter, Thomas and Bob will be walking, jumping, and falling. They will even be able to jump on each other's heads, as well as exploring some level designs that have been loaded from a text file.