Chapter 21: File I/O and the Game Object Factory

This chapter handles how a GameObject gets into the m_GameObjects vector that's used in the game. We will look at how we can describe individual objects and an entire level in a text file. We will write code to interpret the text and then load up values into a class that will be a blueprint for a game object. We will also code a class called LevelManager that oversees the whole process, starting from the initial request to load a level sent from an InputHandler via the ScreenManager, right through to the factory pattern class that assembles a game object from components and delivers it to the LevelManager, neatly packed away in the m_GameObjects vector.

The following are the steps we will go through in this chapter:

• Examine how we will describe game objects and their components in a text file
• Code the GameObjectBlueprint class where the data from the text file will be temporarily stored
• Code the ObjectTags class...