Question

I’m creating a mobile game that that has two parts. The first is slow, the second is fast. The second executes after the first has been satisfied.

I was thinking of running the game in a game loop and separating the two stages in the loop:

MainGameLoop:
while (running) {
 while (!FirstStage.isDone) {
  FirstStage.run(); 
 }
 while (!SecondStage.isDone) {
  SecondStage.run();
 }
}

Is this the correct paradigm? Are there any established game programming paradigm/patterns I can consult?

Answer 1

A good way to go with games is using “State Machines”. Very easy to work with and to extend.

while(true)
{
    switch(game_state)
    {  
       case SLOW_STUFF: // whatver
             if(move_on):  game_state = FAST_STUFF; // or something like this.
             break;
       case FAST_STUFF:  // whatever..
       // then also...
       case GAME_OVER:
       case WAIT_FOR_START:
       case QUIT:
          // save state..
          return;
     etc

    }
}