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Sprint 3 Guides

These guides support Sprint 3. Read them as you work through the requirements.

Design Patterns & Architecture

Guide When to Read
The Observer Pattern Requirements 2, 4, 6 — reacting to GameState.OVER, scoring from PropertyChangeEvents, and publishing new states in back-end features
Model-View-Controller (MVC) All requirements — maintaining clean separation as you add scoring logic and extra features

GUI & Events

Guide When to Read
Handling Key Events Requirement 3 — key binding display; Requirement 5 — optional user-changeable key bindings
Animation with javax.swing.Timer Requirements 2 & 4 — stopping the timer on game over, adjusting delay for leveling
Custom Painting with Java 2D Requirements 2 & 6 — visual effects for end game and Panic/Hyper modes

Back-End Extension

Guide When to Read
Java Enums Requirement 6 — adding new GameState enum constants for Panic Mode or Hyper Piece Mode

Code Quality

Guide When to Read
Linters and Code Quality Requirement 7 — resolving all Checkstyle and IntelliJ inspection warnings
Checkstyle Rules Reference Requirement 7 — understanding specific Checkstyle rules that may be flagged
IntelliJ Inspections Reference Requirement 7 — understanding specific IntelliJ inspection warnings

References

Primary Texts:

  • Gamma, E., Helm, R., Johnson, R., & Vlissides, J. (1994). Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. Addison-Wesley. — Observer pattern (pp. 293-303).
  • Freeman, E., & Robson, E. (2020). Head First Design Patterns (2nd ed.). O'Reilly. — Chapter 2: Observer Pattern.
  • Horstmann, C. S. (2022). Core Java, Volume I: Fundamentals (12th ed.). Oracle Press. — Swing event handling, Timer, custom painting, file I/O.
  • Bloch, J. (2018). Effective Java (3rd ed.). Addison-Wesley. — Item 34: Use enums instead of int constants; Item 42: Prefer lambdas to anonymous classes.

Language Documentation:

Tutorials: