Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
5.1H
EALTH
B
AR
The health bar can be very straightforward to implement, it's often a progress bar on one
of the corners of the screen, other times it's a numeric value that represents a percentage or
an absolute number of hit points. As with all the elements we implement, we will follow
an MVC pattern in which the functionality of the element is abstracted from its view, this
will allow you to keep the functionality intact if you need to make changes to the way you
display the data. For example, early in pre-production of your game, it may be useful to see
the health as a numeric value as it helps other developers understand and tune their systems,
but down the line, the art director or an artist may give you what the health bar is supposed
to look like, this is when being able to change the view quickly and efficiently pays off, or
whenyouhaveanartdirectionthatchangesoften,whichdependingontheprojectmayhap-
pen often, or not at all.
