What is a popular design pattern used for game state management?

The State Pattern is highly regarded for managing different game states such as starting, playing, pausing, and ending the game. This design pattern enables developers to encapsulate the various states of a game into distinct classes, allowing the game to transition smoothly between these states. Each state can define its own behavior and characteristics, which helps maintain a clean and organized codebase. This approach reduces the complexity associated with managing the game state and provides a clearer structure for adding new states or modifying existing ones.

In contrast, other design patterns mentioned serve different purposes. The Strategy Pattern is focused on defining and using interchangeable algorithms for specific actions rather than managing the overall state of the game. The Observer Pattern is mainly used for event-driven scenarios, such as tracking changes in player actions, but does not directly regulate game state transitions. The Singleton Pattern ensures that a class has only one instance, commonly used for global settings, but it does not directly address the dynamic changes in game states required for effective game management. This highlights why the State Pattern is the most applicable choice for game state management.