Creating the Application

The Space-Truckers application needs to be capable of maintaining and transitioning between a set of discrete states that correspond with different screens, such as a Menu screen and a Game screen. Transitions between application states typically occur as a result of user interaction (e.g., the user selects a menu item) or as part of something such as an application launch or exit. Here, we derive our basic application flow, which we then use to build a basic framework for presenting and transitioning between arbitrary screens.

In the first chapter, we saw the complete Space-Truckers game in all its glory and beauty. We then immediately went on to create the loading screen’s animation in the Playground before slowing down a bit to build out the supporting application infrastructure that the game will need. It may feel seem to be a bit of a let-down that we’ve been focusing so much on things that aren’t part of the game’s design...