Table of contents
Map Entities
What is a map entity?
A map entity, represented by the MapEntity class in the Level package, is any game object that is a part of a map. This includes map tiles (MapTile class), enemies (Enemy class), enhanced map tiles (EnhancedMapTiles class), and NPCs (NPC class).
What is the purpose of this class?
The main purpose of the MapEntity class, which extends from GameObject, is that the MapEntity class adds a couple of instance variables to give them additional functionality.
Map Entity Status
All map entities have an instance variable mapEntityStatus which the map’s Camera uses to determine if the entity is “active” or not. An active entity means it should be included in the level’s update/draw cycle for a current frame. Entities that are too far offscreen will be removed from the Camera's update/draw cycle until they are back on screen, as the game does not want to waste resources on entities that at that current frame have no effect on the level or the player.
The MapEntityStatus enum in the Level package defines three different possible statuses: ACTIVE, INACTIVE, and REMOVED. An entity generally doesn’t have to mess with this value as the Camera handles the logic for checking active vs inactive entities, however an entity may set its own status to REMOVED to have it permanently removed from the level with no ability to respawn.