Question

I am developing a game in which the user can turn on / off certain effects. These effects cause a drain on the users’ energy and various parts of the program must be able to check if an affect is active. Currently, I’m using an enum type to store and check the effects:

public static enum Effects { SUPER_FIRE, FIRE_SHIELD }

if (someEffect == Effects.SUPER_FIRE) {
    // Breath fire etc..
}

Saying this, I have to store other variables for each effect – such as the level required to use it or the rate at which it drains energy. So, the other method I thought of was to use a class:

public class SuperFire extends Effect {

    public static int levelRequired = 10;
    public static int drainRate = 5;        

    public boolean active() {
        // Check if it's active
    }

    public boolean activate() {
    }

    public boolean deactivate() {
    }

}


SuperFireEffect sfe = new SuperFire();
sfe.activate();
if (sfe.active()) {
    energyLevel -= sfe.drainRate;
}
sfe.deactivate();

Which implementation (or any other) is the best for this situation?

Answer 1

I hesitate to say “best” in any case, but it would appear that your second example is “better” in the “more flexible” meaning of the word.

Of course, from your very small code snippets, you are not encapsulating the functionality very well, so it would appear you may wish to do some more design work first.

In the end, you want to have the game code think in terms of the Effect base class and what it can do, and not have to know anything about the implementation of things like SuperFireEffect.