A side-scrolling animation, created in Qt Creator 4.8.2 (Qt version 5.12.1) and compiled with Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler 15.0 (amd64). Utilises an abstract factory and builder to encapsulate the potential animation versions (differing stickman and background objects).

• P: pause/play animation
• Q: quit animation

Config file

The config file is composed of 4 JSON objects:

• stage: the animation version number (i.e. Stage1Stickman vs. Stage2Stickman)
• world: spatial dimensions for the dialog window (width and height, in pixels)
• stickman: parameters and properties of the stickman object. Specifically, it is expected to contain the following key-value pairs:
  • sourceFolder: directory location of stickman size folders, using the reference from the resources.qrc file (default: ://assets/stickman/)
  • sourceFilename: filename of all stickman sprites, without appended number or filetype (default: sprite)
  • sourceFiletype: filetype extension of all stickman sprites (default: .png)
  • numberOfSprites: number of sprite images for each stickman size (used for animation purposes; default: 6)
  • size: categorial size of stickman (either tiny, normal, large, or giant)
  • heights: a JSON object containing the pixel heights of all stickman sizes (ie. in the form heights:{tiny:, normal:, etc})
  • position: initial x-coordinate of stickman (referring to the left-most side of its sprite image)
  • velocity: initial speed (in pixels per frame update) of stickman (and thus, the background layers too)
• backgrounds: array of background layers (for purposes of parallax scrolling effect), with each index containing:
  • source: location of the background layer image, using the reference from the resources.qrc file (for example, ://assets/background/clouds.png)
  • width: pixel width of background image
  • velocityScaling: the scaling factor applied to the background layer's velocity (ie. each background layer moves at (stickmanVelocity * its velocityScaling value) )

Coding style

The coding style is based on the C++ Core Guidelines outlined by Bjarne Stroustrup and Herb Sutter. Most notably:

• use camelCase for naming variables and functions, and UpperCamelCase for class names (global constants should be in capitals with underscore separators)
• prepend member variables with an m_ prefix
• base indentation is set at 4 spaces
• attempt to keep lines of code to a maximum of roughly 100 characters
• local header includes appear before system headers (and in alphabetical order for both sections)
• use standard header guards (#ifndef) in all header files
• method parameters should be passed by value for cheaply-copied types (like int, std::string), with all others being passed as a const reference where possible
• any non-pure virtual methods within an abstract class should have their implementation within the header file (as opposed to an additional implementation file)
• throw an exception to signal when a function can't perform it's assigned task (in order to safely return and quit application)
• code comments and documentation should be Doxygen-esque (see here)

Acknowledgements

Graphical and audio assets were used and adapted from ansimuz - Games & Pixel Art: specifically SunnyLand Woods and SunnyLand.