Java InvalidDefinitionException when serializing object with jackson databind

You're trying to store the Circle class, which is a JavaFX class, that is not really a data class (it is a UI element), with many properties (like radius, thickness, color, fills, borders etc.). As such it is tied in with the JavaFX system in various ways and will not store well.

Instead, just store the information you want in a simple class of your own, which has the information you need to create the Circle object again when you read it back.

Generally Jackson works the best with POJO classes. When you want to serialise business objects many unexpected errors could occur. Probably the best solution would be to create new model classes which represents state of Player and Snowball. Something like PlayerState and SnowballState. These two classes should follow POJO rules: getters, setters, no-arg constructor, etc. When you need to save state to JSON you can convert your business model to state model and serialise state model. When you need to deserialise JSON you need to deserialise it to state model and after that convert it to business model. For JavaFX classes you need to implement custom serialisers and deserialisers if needed. They are also not regular POJO classes and needs special treatment.

Lets implement two serialisers and one deserialiser:

class CircleJsonSerializer extends JsonSerializer<Circle> {

    @Override
    public void serialize(Circle value, JsonGenerator gen, SerializerProvider serializers) throws IOException {
        gen.writeStartObject();
        gen.writeNumberField("radius", value.getRadius());
        gen.writeNumberField("centerX", value.getCenterX());
        gen.writeNumberField("centerY", value.getCenterY());
        gen.writeEndObject();
    }
}

class CircleJsonDeserializer extends JsonDeserializer<Circle> {

    @Override
    public Circle deserialize(JsonParser p, DeserializationContext ctxt) throws IOException {
        TreeNode node = p.readValueAsTree();
        NumericNode radius = (NumericNode) node.get("radius");
        NumericNode centerX = (NumericNode) node.get("centerX");
        NumericNode centerY = (NumericNode) node.get("centerY");

        return new Circle(centerX.doubleValue(), centerY.doubleValue(), radius.doubleValue());
    }
}

class ColorJsonDeserializer extends JsonDeserializer<Color> {
    @Override
    public Color deserialize(JsonParser p, DeserializationContext ctxt) throws IOException {
        TreeNode node = p.readValueAsTree();
        NumericNode red = (NumericNode) node.get("red");
        NumericNode green = (NumericNode) node.get("green");
        NumericNode blue = (NumericNode) node.get("blue");
        NumericNode opacity = (NumericNode) node.get("opacity");

        return Color.color(red.doubleValue(), green.doubleValue(), blue.doubleValue(), opacity.doubleValue());
    }
}

You can use them as below:

import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonIgnore;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonGenerator;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonParser;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.TreeNode;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.DeserializationContext;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonDeserializer;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonSerializer;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.SerializationFeature;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.SerializerProvider;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.module.SimpleModule;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.node.NumericNode;
import javafx.scene.paint.Color;
import javafx.scene.shape.Circle;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class JsonApp {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        Player player = new Player("N1", Color.BLUE);

        SimpleModule javafxModule = new SimpleModule();
        javafxModule.addSerializer(Circle.class, new CircleJsonSerializer());
        javafxModule.addDeserializer(Circle.class, new CircleJsonDeserializer());
        javafxModule.addDeserializer(Color.class, new ColorJsonDeserializer());

        ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
        mapper.registerModule(javafxModule);
        mapper.enable(SerializationFeature.INDENT_OUTPUT);

        String json = mapper.writeValueAsString(player);
        System.out.println(json);
        System.out.println(mapper.readValue(json, Player.class));
    }
}

Above code prints:

{
  "circle" : {
    "radius" : 1.0,
    "centerX" : 0.0,
    "centerY" : 0.0
  },
  "color" : {
    "red" : 0.0,
    "green" : 0.0,
    "blue" : 1.0,
    "opacity" : 1.0,
    "opaque" : true,
    "hue" : 240.0,
    "saturation" : 1.0,
    "brightness" : 1.0
  },
  "lives" : 3,
  "snowballs" : [ {
    "state" : "CREATED",
    "direction" : 0.0,
    "circle" : null
  }, {
    "state" : "CREATED",
    "direction" : 0.0,
    "circle" : null
  }, {
    "state" : "CREATED",
    "direction" : 0.0,
    "circle" : null
  } ]
}

//ToString
Player{circle=Circle[centerX=0.0, centerY=0.0, radius=1.0, fill=0x000000ff], name='null', color=0x0000ffff, points=0, lives=3, snowballs=[Snowball{player=null, state=CREATED, direction=0.0, circle=null}, Snowball{player=null, state=CREATED, direction=0.0, circle=null}, Snowball{player=null, state=CREATED, direction=0.0, circle=null}], oldCircle=null, stepSize=10}

As you can see we can serialise and deserialise Player class but it needs many extra work. Also for each getter methods which does business logic I ignored them like below:

@JsonIgnore
public int getHit() {
    removeLife();
    return getLives();
}

One more hint: getHint method has side effect. It removes life - whatever it means. That's generally a bad practice but this question is not about naming.