Games from Within

High Moon Studios is an unusual company in the games industry. We're applying agile methodologies for all of our development. My team in particular is using both Scrum (an agile management methodology) and Extreme Programming (an agile engineering methodology). And yes, that means we're doing pair programming, test-driven development, and all the other often controversial practices. I expect that in a few years, these practices will be a lot more common than they are today.

No plan survives first contact with the enemy. In game development, detailed milestones, complex schedules, and careful planning often go out the window as soon as the project starts. Agile development provides a set of techniques to steer the project in the right direction and embrace change.

If you've read some of my other articles, you know that I believe that the best code is no code at all. But what if you actually have to write some code? What then? This article deals with that question and shows the importance of simplicity.

It is true that no tools are necessary to apply good software engineering techniques, but they can often be a big help. The third and last session of “By the Books: Software Engineering in the Games Industry” concentrated exclusively on languages and tools, and participants shared their favorite tools and warned others about potential duds.

The second session of the GDC 2004 roundtable “By The Books: Software Engineering in the Games Industry” concentrated on processes and methodologies. In particular, we had a good look at agile development and how it can be applied to game development.