Trying to get the Lives and Game Over portion of my game to work - processing

Question

I'm creating a collision detection game where:
Every time I hit the wall, the number of my lives go down.
Once I get to 0 lives, the game is over.
But the game is letting me go into negative lives. Also, my click to begin once you win doesn't seem to work either... Does anybody know how to fix this?
PImage startScreen;
int gamestate=1;
int lives = 3;
class Sprite {
float x;
float y;
float dx;
float dy;
}
Sprite rect=new Sprite();
Sprite ball=new Sprite();
void setup(){
size(500,500);
rect.x = 500;
rect.y = 12;
ball.y= mouseY;
background(0);
fill(0,255,0);
text("Click to Begin", 10, 250);
}
void draw(){
if(gamestate ==0){
background(0);
fill(0, 255,0);
noStroke();
rect(0,235, 500,2.5);
rect(0,250, 500,2.5);
fill(0);
rect(0,238,rect.x,rect.y);
fill(0,255,0);
ellipse(mouseX, mouseY, 2,2);
text("lives left:"+lives, 10, 20);
if (mouseY<240 || mouseY>247){
background(0);
lives = lives-1;
if(lives <= 0){
text("Game Over. \nClick to Begin", 225,250);
gamestate=1;
}
}
if (mouseX >= 495){
background(0);
text("You Win! \nClick to Begin Again.", 225,250);
}
}
}
void mousePressed(){
if (gamestate ==1){
gamestate=0;
}
}

Answer 1

Keep in mind that before your mouse enters the sketch for the first time, mouseX and mouseY are both 0. So in your draw() function, when you check if mouseY < 240, that's true. You do that 60 times per second, so you lose all 3 of your lives right away.
To fix this, you might want to have a "starting rectangle" that the player has to click to start the game, that way you know the mouse is in the window.
Then after that, you have to give the player a chance to get back to the starting circle before starting the next round, otherwise you just keep losing lives 60 times per second.
That basics might look something like this:
int gamestate=1; //1 is start screen, 0 is playing, 2 is between lives, 3 wins
int lives = 3;
class Sprite {
float x;
float y;
float dx;
float dy;
}
Sprite rect=new Sprite();
Sprite ball=new Sprite();
void setup() {
size(500, 500);
rect.x = 500;
rect.y = 12;
ball.y= mouseY;
}
void draw() {
background(0);
if (gamestate ==0) {
fill(0, 255, 0);
noStroke();
rect(0, 235, 500, 2.5);
rect(0, 250, 500, 2.5);
fill(0);
rect(0, 238, rect.x, rect.y);
fill(0, 255, 0);
ellipse(mouseX, mouseY, 2, 2);
text("lives left:"+lives, 10, 20);
if (mouseY<240 || mouseY>247) {
lives = lives-1;
gamestate=2;
if (lives <= 0) {
text("Game Over. \nClick to Begin", 225, 250);
gamestate=1;
}
}
if (mouseX >= 495) {
gamestate=3;
}
}
else if(gamestate == 1 || gamestate==2){
fill(0, 255, 0);
text("Click to Begin", 10, 230);
rect(0, 240, width, 7);
}
else if(gamestate == 3){
text("You Win! \nClick to Begin Again.", 225, 250);
}
}
void mousePressed() {
if (gamestate ==1 || gamestate == 2) {
if(mouseY>240 && mouseY<247){
gamestate=0;
}
}
}
Note that I don't really understand what your game is supposed to do: your "safe area" is only 7 pixels tall, which seems pretty small. But assuming this is just an example, my answer should generalize to your real code:
Split your game up into "modes". You started to do this with your gamestate variable, but you're also mixing event code and drawing code. Instead, make every mode a state: the start screen, the playing screen, the "in between lives" screen, the game over screen. Only draw the stuff for that mode, and then change the mode based on input. Basically, instead of checking for "play mode" and then drawing "game over" when you run out of lives, just switch to "game over mode" and let that part of the code draw the "game over" to the screen.