Implementing an Ammo Count

While I don’t think it’s best for an Asteroid-inspired Arcade Shooter to have an ammo count, it is a useful tool in more modern day shooting games like Call of Duty and Team Fortress 2 (I know, TF2 is a little dated, but it still applies). In this article I will show you some basic implementation for any game you have.

An ammo count is effectively a glorified counting variable. With that understanding, using int in this case makes a lot of sense. And since it’s a counting variable, if it reaches a point it can’t count, then it need to prevent the action of firing your gun (or laser). Therefore, put it in the if-statement that checks for it! Effectively you are asking this:

If the player clicks their Left Mouse Button (LMB) and you have ammo left, you can fire.

Subtract one from your counter in your Fire function and boom! Now once the ammo runs out, the gun won’t fire. But how can we show the player? Right now they’ll think the game is bugged and after a set amount of shots it just stops working.

You are probably going to want an Ammo Counter Display

Having a display telling the player how much Ammo they have left is very important for the reason previously stated. This is a rather simple addition with an already created game, but if you need some help with UI Management or having the UI talk to your Player, check out this article on building UI Elements.

With a little crossing of the proverbial wires, you can link your ammo count to a UI Text variable to display the number

This would be an approximation of what you need to do.

With all that, your game should display your ammo properly and lose ammo when you fire!