I’m just getting the hang of MVC and I’ve tried to design a simple Tetris game using the pattern but I’ve come across a problem:
The problem lies when a line is complete and so it needs to disappear. In the most basic form of the game the interaction with the model, view and controller when this happens is quite simple (if I’ve got it right):
[LIST=1][]The View sees that an object has reached the bottom of the screen and notifies the Controller with the details.[]The controller recognizes that a line is complete and so adjusts the Model accordingly, removing the necessary items from the 2d grid array and moving the objects above the line down.[]The Model informs the View that the data has change.[]The View re-renders the screen based on the new grid in the Model.[/LIST]
The issue arises when I try to implement animation when a line disappears. If I just used the methods above the only way for the View to know that a line needs to disappear is by checking all the items in the new grid against the current one every time to see if the animation needs to be played. This seems hugely unnecessary considering the controller has already recognized the line needs to be removed. Therefore the way I see it either: the controller needs to inform the View directly that it needs to perform the animation which would cause problems for View’s that do not have such an animation. Or the view does calculations itself before sending the notification to the Controller in step 1 which as far as I understand it would break the MVC pattern as the Controller is meant to handle the user interaction. (Am I right??)
I could be completely misunderstanding the MVC design pattern here so please if anybody can inform me on how to solve this conundrum I would be very grateful.
