Java 7 for Absolute Beginners

CHAPTER 12 ■ VIDEO GAMES

I try to not restrict the user's actions unless I have a good, user-friendly reason to do so. So I would

not normally have removed the ability to resize the window. Again, though, I thought it would make a

good example, and it simplified the programming a bit. Restricting the user's actions to make your own

life easier is poor practice though (it's a form of intellectual laziness) – don't do it unless you're doing it

just to show how it's done.

One last thing to note about the ShootingGallery class (and the game) is that it has no start or stop

control. It just runs continuously without end. I left out a number of common features that you might

expect in a game so that you can implement them yourself. I've added a list of those ideas near the end

of the chapter.

Listing 12-6. The ShootingGalleryPanel class

package com.bryantcs.examples.videogames;

import java.awt.Dimension;

import java.awt.Graphics;

import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;

import java.awt.event.ActionListener;

import javax.swing.BoxLayout;

import javax.swing.JPanel;

import javax.swing.Timer;

public class ShootingGalleryPanel extends JPanel implements ActionListener{

private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

// The cursor, controlled by the player

private ShootingGalleryShooter shooter;

// The sprites that march down the game area

private ShootingGalleryTargetSprites sprites;

// The width of the widest target

public final static int TARGET_SPACE = 50;

// A tick counter to control the animation

private int ticks;

// Three rows of targets

static ShootingGalleryTargetRow row1, row2, row3;

// The timer, to control the game loop

private Timer timer = new Timer(20, this);

// The constructor

public ShootingGalleryPanel() {