Don’t start from scratch if you don’t have to
November 16th, 2004 | Programming, Software Development
There’s a lot of people out there wanting to make a lot of games. As a result there’s a lot of programs that never get finished. Sometimes this is ok, people start a project to learn some new technology or to get more experience with some thing.
Other times someone starts a project because they really believe in what they are doing. Look at all of the fan versions of various classic video games out there. People are doing these because they genuinely feel something about that original game and they want to emulate it (or honor it) through their own work.
And that is so cool. But more often than not, once the project gets rolling it stops. And once it stops, it rots. And to me this is sad. Most of the time it seems like the people involved decided from the get-go to try and do everything (code, sound, art, writing, etc.) themselves. One part of the project got to be overwhelming (usually the artwork, most programmers can’t draw to save their own lives), and the house of cards comes tumbling down.
But it doesn’t have to be like this. Your house of cards can use a little bit of glue in the form of recycling an existing project. I’m not saying you should steal, but I”m saying that if you seem some project out there that is similar to what you are aiming to do, try to use it as a spring board.
Get the code (again, only do this if it is licensed to allow you to do this), play with it. You’ll probably find that most of the “grunt work” has been done for you. This will allow you to get your project up and running a little bit faster.
Of course it won’t look exactly like what you had in mind, but a running program is worth its weight in gold. It helps capture and build momentum. It frees you up to work on more interesting problems. It lets you see the big picture.
Plus it buys you some time. You don’t like the way the fonts are displayed? Well all you have to do is tweak the rendering code. Tweaking is much easier than WRITING FROM SCRATCH. Remember that, it will make your life easier.
0 comments ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
You must log in to post a comment.