How to make a main menu?

I haven't tried it yet but I think something like the following should work:

- Declare a boolean boolGameStarted or boolShowMenu
- Create a custom menu class or something else, ie a simple array, that holds the currently select option
- Depending on the boolean, draw the menu options, e.g. strings or a sprite, and draw the currently selected option in a different color for example (ie. different color string or tint a sprite)
- In your code that handles the keyboard/gamepad menu, depending on the boolean, check for input (up or down, start/enter, etc) and change the currently selected menu option in the menu class or array according to the input

JohanHiemstra at 2007-10-8 >

What I do is the following. At least that's what I did with MDX. Haven't got the chance to try XNA a lot yet. Will be a good mean to learn C# as I'm more of a VB.NET guy.

I have an abstract GameState class with a few Functions defined as MustInherit (like Update, Draw etc...). Every GameState like the Game itself, the menu etc... is a child class of GameState. Those classes implement the different functions.

Then there is the GameStateManager which is basically just a Stack of GameState objects. e.g. when I open the Menu, I push an instance of my Menu Class onto the stack. Once the menu gets closed, I pop it from the stack. Thus the game always only needs to call the Update, Draw etc... function of the "Top" element of the stack and the correct GameState will be rendered without having to track which GameState we are in using Booleans, Enums or whatever.

RizMan at 2007-10-8 >