Chapter 7: Timers and Animation: The Lunar Lander

When you move to a graphical interface, you can write many new kinds of programs. Games and animations are especially interesting to write. In this chapter, you will write a simple arcade game, with all the features you might expect from such a game. Along the way, you’ll master techniques used for writing animations in C#. In this chapter you will learn how to

∙Read individual key presses.

∙Work with multiple images.

∙Use the timer object to simplify animation.

∙Move objects around on the screen.

∙Detect collisions between objects.

Introducing the Lunar Lander

The sample game for this chapter re−creates one of the all−time classic arcade games, the Lunar Lander game. In this game, the user tries to pilot a spacecraft near the surface of the moon. The pilot must land his or her craft on a small platform with limited fuel. Figure 7.1 demonstrates the Lunar Lander game in action.

Figure 7.1: The landing craft starts with a random speed and direction—and limited fuel.

The player controls the ship with thrusters controlled by the arrow keys. However, each blast of a thruster burns precious fuel. If the player is going too fast when he or she touches the landing pad, it is a crash, and he or she loses a ship. A safe landing is rewarded with more fuel and a new, randomly chosen landing assignment. The game continues until the user loses three ships.

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