Comments on: Game Code Sucks! http://www.heimburg.com/blog/2007/07/21/game-code-sucks/ A developer's perspective on development Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:00:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 By: Marv Gouw http://www.heimburg.com/blog/2007/07/21/game-code-sucks/#comment-219 Marv Gouw Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:58:20 +0000 http://www.heimburg.com/blog/2007/07/21/game-code-sucks/#comment-219 I agree with Jesper. A lot of the times I add hacks in at the end because it's just not worth refactoring code for minor changes. Eventually you come to realize that when you're near the end, you're actually at the beginning of actually coding the game and past the point of fixing the core systems. There are some systems you can start adopting that really help development time. I found myself working with time a lot, procedurally generated animations or even timers for unit events. Instead of putting variables all over the place to save current time and compare vs. a max time just use something like a timer callback system. But with every game I put out, I'm also fine tuning the engine for faster development on the next game. I agree with Jesper. A lot of the times I add hacks in at the end because it’s just not worth refactoring code for minor changes. Eventually you come to realize that when you’re near the end, you’re actually at the beginning of actually coding the game and past the point of fixing the core systems.

There are some systems you can start adopting that really help development time. I found myself working with time a lot, procedurally generated animations or even timers for unit events. Instead of putting variables all over the place to save current time and compare vs. a max time just use something like a timer callback system.

But with every game I put out, I’m also fine tuning the engine for faster development on the next game.

]]> By: Dan O'Brien http://www.heimburg.com/blog/2007/07/21/game-code-sucks/#comment-216 Dan O'Brien Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:00:30 +0000 http://www.heimburg.com/blog/2007/07/21/game-code-sucks/#comment-216 > (the engine code at Turbine is reasonably clean) Wow, I felt quite the pang of pride reading that! Like many things, it's about finding the right balance; how much future time am I going to save making this general and extensible, vs how extra much time is this going to take now? It's always a guess, but you get better at it with experience. At Turbine in particular, we knew the engine code would be in use for many future years, so it often made sense to take the extra time. > (the engine code at Turbine is reasonably clean)

Wow, I felt quite the pang of pride reading that!

Like many things, it’s about finding the right balance; how much future time am I going to save making this general and extensible, vs how extra much time is this going to take now? It’s always a guess, but you get better at it with experience. At Turbine in particular, we knew the engine code would be in use for many future years, so it often made sense to take the extra time.

]]> By: Jesper Juul http://www.heimburg.com/blog/2007/07/21/game-code-sucks/#comment-214 Jesper Juul Sat, 21 Jul 2007 10:36:21 +0000 http://www.heimburg.com/blog/2007/07/21/game-code-sucks/#comment-214 I try to keep my code nice and well-structured through development, but most of my problems come towards the end of a project when I assume that "since the project is closing and I will never touch this code again, I'll just fix this problem with a quick hack". And THEN the project takes longer to complete than anticipated and my little hacks are suddenly a big problem. IMO, the future belongs to managed code and programming environments with good refactoring support (Java with Eclipse, for example). I try to keep my code nice and well-structured through development, but most of my problems come towards the end of a project when I assume that “since the project is closing and I will never touch this code again, I’ll just fix this problem with a quick hack”.
And THEN the project takes longer to complete than anticipated and my little hacks are suddenly a big problem.

IMO, the future belongs to managed code and programming environments with good refactoring support (Java with Eclipse, for example).

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