Quote:Original post by squidlarkin
I know that it's considered a good idea to have as few global variables as possible, and to chunk your code into manageable functions, but so much of my code needs to be aware of so much of my data. Things like my player object and the number of ticks in the current frame are referenced almost everywhere, so I make them globals. Now almost all my game data is global. Can anyone point me to some useful reading for understanding the whys and hows of proper variable scope?

Your problem is not about variable scope, but rather one of design. The player object, for instance, should certainly not be used everywhere — aside from the game itself, I don't know who else should know about the player. The physical world? Nah, the player is an object like any other, the world doesn't need to know it is the player. The enemies? Nope, the player is a hostile object in sight like any other, the enemies don't need to know it's the player.

In short, all physical objects (and nobody else) should know about the world they live in (which provides queries to locate the nearest object(s) that correspond to a given filter) and about the objects they collide with. The player doesn't come in anywhere here — the game needs to create one at initialization and insert it into the world, but nobody else needs to know that it's a player!

The same goes for the ticks in the current frame. It's used to update the movement of physical objects, which are all handled by the world, and the various timers which are owned by objects (which are also handled by the world). However, your average object doesn't need to know about the time (or, worse, the time delta) at all!

You seem to have a view that is too global. Your modules should be modular: they shouldn't depend on many other modules to work.