Video Game Design and Coding · PLECK lesson

PLECK lesson 78 · suggested week 16, day 3

Plan ownership and signal flow

Objective. Choose one owner for each important piece of state.

Godot Engine Standard desktop editor 4.7.2-stable, GDScript (Godot 4), Compatibility renderer. Headless Godot 4.7.2.stable.official.ed1daf0bf passed 106 assertions on the supplied scaffolds, including malformed JSON saves. Audio used the Dummy driver and a synthetic WAV, not a speaker. The visual editor, browser export, and signed-in submission were not tested. The desk still does not run a student's own upload.

About 55 minutes. The due date is chosen by a parent.

Scope, acceptance criteria, architecture and first playable integration

Suggested pace: Recall and predict 5 min; Read instruction and scaffold 12 min; Build or design the assigned artifact 25 min; Run acceptance tests 8 min; Explain and checkpoint 5 min.

Materials: Paper and pencil or a private text document, Local course folder and prior checkpoint, No paid assets or public account required.

Comes after VGC-L077.

Draw the node tree before writing the manager. Assign ownership: Player handles motion, pickup or hazard detects local contact, Manager owns round state, and HUD displays manager values. Arrows show signals from local objects to the manager and commands from the manager to views or actors. Avoid every node directly modifying every other node. A clear architecture reduces accidental double scoring and makes explanations easier. List the exact node names needed by any $ paths, then keep them consistent.

Worked example

A minimum one-room collector can be described by one action, one obstacle, visible progress, one ending and restart. Extra rooms are optional until that loop works.

Plan ownership and signal flow — evidence task

  1. 1. Draw the node tree and a state-owner table.
  2. 2. Trace one event from player action through state update to HUD.

Deliverable. Architecture diagram and state-owner table.

Acceptance checks

Understanding question. Why is one owner per state variable useful?

Submit readable text or photos/scans of each numbered design page. Audio explanation may supplement a diagram or text, not replace requested artifacts.

If this is still shaky. Choose one earlier genre and one room. Keep one player action, one obstacle type and one goal until the loop works. Start with the first assigned task and re-run its acceptance test before adding the remaining feature.

Optional extra. Propose an optional mechanic but do not build it before the minimum tests pass. Document one changed parameter, your prediction, and the observed effect; optional, not required for completion.

Name ____________________ Date ____________________