I am playing a fighting game and I do not know my opponent. Should I prefer an offensive or defensive style?

Since the opponent is unknown, the player has to choose a fighting strategy on the fly. In programming terms, we can say that an algorithm has to be selected at runtime, among several available algorithms.

The Strategy design pattern is exactly what we need in this kind of situation. To implement this pattern, we can have:

• A concrete context (FightingGame) which contains a reference to a strategy
• An abstract representation of a strategy (abstract class or interface)
• Concrete strategies (Offense & Defense)