How would I go about pausing the time (programming a game) - c

Question

basically I need to implement a pause feature in my game (which is a simplified version of frogger) which stops the logs scrolling, and ignores any other input until the character p is pressed again). The way I've started to implement this in a while loop is to end it once another p Is pressed.
if(serial_input == 'p' || serial_input == 'P') {
while(1){
//need to pause the game
if(serial_input == 'p' || serial_input == 'P')
break;
}
This is how my logs are currently scrolling:
/* The following statements change the scrolling speeds of the individual logs */
current_time = get_clock_ticks();
if(is_frog_alive() && current_time >= last_move_time1 + 1000) {
scroll_lane(0, 1);
last_move_time1 = current_time;
} else if(is_frog_alive() && current_time >= last_move_time2 + 600) {
scroll_lane(1, -1);
last_move_time2 = current_time;
} else if(is_frog_alive() && current_time >= last_move_time3 + 800) {
scroll_lane(2, 1);
last_move_time3 = current_time;
} else if(is_frog_alive() && current_time >= last_move_time4 + 900) {
scroll_log_channel(0, -1);
last_move_time4 = current_time;
} else if(is_frog_alive() && current_time >= last_move_time5 + 1200) {
scroll_log_channel(1, 1);
last_move_time5 = current_time;
And this is implemented by a timer as described:
* We update a global clock tick variable - whose value
* can be retrieved using the get_clock_ticks() function.
*/
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Answer 1

The best practice would depend on the libraries and general architecture you're using. That being said a naive implementation which I sometimes use would go somewhat like this:
while( playing) {
if( !paused) {
logic();
}
rendering();
input();
}
When doing small game projects, inside the main while loop I scatter logic, rendering and input in to different parts. In the input part there's the button that toggles the pause flag. In the main loop, the logic is simply enclosed in an if statement.
If you still need to do something inside the logic, you could pass it as a parameter or make it visible in some other way. Additionally you can do some special when-paused-graphics in the rendering section.
Details would vary but I hope this would at least give you a nudge to the right direction. That being said it is a common thing to implement and shouldn't be too hard to google.