The Game API
The static Game class is undoubtedly one of the classes that you will call the most when creating a game with LITIENGINE. It is designed to be the static container that provides access to all important aspects of the engine., e.g. it holds the GameInfo, the RenderEngine, the SoundEngine and many other major components.
We designed the API such that all important parts that make up the game are directly accessible via the Game class statically. To be more technical, it is essentially a collection of core Singleton instances.
The Game class will also be your starting point when setting up a new LITIENGINE project. In order to launch your game, you need to at least initialize and start the game infrastructure from your application's entry point.
public static void main(String[] args) {
Game.init(args);
Game.start();
}Additionally, event listeners for the most basic operations of a Game life cycle can be registered on the Game class:
Game.addGameListener(new GameListener() {
@Override
public void initialized(String... args) {
// do sth when game is initialized
}
@Override
public void started() {
// do sth when game started
}
@Override
public void terminated() {
// do sth when game terminated
}
});Major Components
The Game class provides access to the engine's three major parts that are responsible for rendering, the audio as well as the physical restraints an LITIENGINE games.
The RenderEngine: Game.graphics()
The 2D Render Engine is used to render texts, shapes and entities at their location in the Environment with respect to the Camera location and zoom. A typical use-case for calls to the RenderEngine is the composition of a graphical user interface.
// Example: render "my text" at the location of an entity
Game.graphics().renderText(g, "my text", myEntity.getX(), myEntity.getY());
The SoundEngine: Game.audio()
The 2D Sound Engine provides methods to playback sounds and music in your game. It allows to define the 2D coordinates from which a sound originates and support the audio formats .wav, .mp3 and .ogg.
// Example: play a sound at environment location (50/50)
Game.audio().playSound("my-sound.ogg", 50, 50);The PhysicsEngine: Game.physics()
The TweenEngine: Game.tweens()
The tweening framework is a powerful tool that allows you to animate properties of different types of objects in your game. It is a simple way to create smooth interpolations, e.g. for position, size, rotation, opacity, and more.
Meta Components
Game.config()Game.info()Game.metrics()Game.time()
System.out.println("Game version is: " + Game.info().getVersion());Game Loops
In the LITIENGINE, the game logic is decoupled from the framerate and run in a separate loop. The same applies to the player input. For these purposes, the engine provides three different loops which have their designated purpose.
Game.loop()Game.renderLoop()Game.inputLoop()
Composition
Game.world()Game.window()Game.screens()
