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Building a Gameplay Framework in SFML & C++

A deep dive into gameplay architecture, engine patterns, AI, and scalable systems design

C++ SFML CMake Architecture
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Features

Object-Oriented Design with Component-based features

  • Used Component -> SceneComponent -> PrimitiveComponent hierarchy to mimic Unreal Engine
  • Settable Render and Update Priorities.
  • Abstracted Object/ Entity/ Component lifetimes and ownership.

Enemy Ships

  • Implemented Craig Reynold’s Flocking algorithm for group movement and player seeking behavior. (see: Source/Ships/Bot.cpp -> void Bot::AddFlockingForces())
  • Group Shooting policy for limiting max number of enemy ships to Auto Shoot at player when they have Line of Sight

Implicit Grids for collision detection using Binary Spatial Partitioning.

  • Implementation in Core/Physics/ImplicitGrid.h
  • Added LineCasting and CircleCasting functions. (Core/Physics/Physics.h)

Timer & Timer Manager

  • With OnStart() OnComplete() and OnUpdate() assignable functions

A customisable and flexible Particle System.

  • Pooled particles
  • Support for Emission Bursts
  • Update Colour & Scale over lifetime
  • Set Emission Orientation and Initial velocity to be applied in Global or Local space.
  • Set Emitter and Particle shape, shape can be:
    • Static vector of
    • Logical function with a resolution specified, will generate points using the function using a 0-1.f
    • Static presets such as Circle, Square, Line.

Templated Object Pooling

  • Used for particles/ states and their lifetimes.
  • Restricted to pools holding weak pointers to pooled objects.
  • Make any object poolable by inheriting from APoolable.

Global Input Event Messaging System

  • Create Input bindings on Button Pressed, Button Held, Button Released.
  • Wrapper on top of SFML input event polling

Graph based on linked lists

  • Written to be scalable and ready to use with multiple prospect graph requirements (such as pathfinding).
  • Used it for implementing Finite State machine. Core/Graph/FSM/FSM.h
    • Used by Portal, Enemy Ship, Kamikaze Enemy Ship
    • Reusable BaseWaitState so you can add functionality at the start, end and tick of the timer on child states.
Added a Stars background to game.
  • Random stars keep twinkling over time.
  • 2D Parallax effect based on player’s acceleration.
UIManager for HUD
  • Renders UI Objects only, made functionality to easily display Text but can be easily extended to render shapes etc.

Design patterns

  • Game loop (lol)
  • Dirty Flag
    • Deferred delete for Core/ECS/Object.h -> Object::Kill()
    • Component transform recalculation optimization (Core/ECS/GameEntity.h -> GameEntity::bPositionDirty_)
  • Observer (Core/Event.h)
  • Strategy (Ships/AShootingStrategy.h)
  • Object Pooling (Core/Pooling/WeakPointerObjectPool.h)
  • State Machine (Graph/FSM/FSM.h, EnemyShip has 2 FSMs, 1 for attacking and movement each, Portal for teleport cooldown)
  • Singleton (System is a singleton, which owns FSMManager, ScreenShaker, etc and gives weak pointers when requested.)
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