Software Engineering and Computer Games

13.2. The cCritterArmed

The cCritterArmed has the ability to shoot bullets; this is what its shoot method does.

To begin with, let’s explain how the cCritterArmed::shoot gets called. The call is the responsibility of the cCritterArmed::update method, which checks if (a) the critter’s _armed flag is on, meaning that it is allowed to shoot at all, and (b) the critter’s _bshooting flag is on, meaning that it is supposed to shoot right now. When we use a cCritterArmed as a player, the _bshooting flag is something we normally turn on and off by pressing the space bar or the left mouse button. When we have a self-running ‘robotic’ cCritterArmedRobot child of the cCritterArmed class as a rival in our game, the _bshooting flag will often be continually ...