Laying The Code Foundation

I have begun to plan out the code for Puni Puni Kingdom. I have known that having a well laid out blueprint for the code makes development tremendously smoother, but I always seem to get too excited about writing the code. Usually, once I have a rough idea of what I am going to do I rush into it. This is bad because most of the time I end up with inefficient and poorly designed code.

So this time I am finally going to stick to it and invest some real time into building up the code's blueprint. Programming is not just about writing the code after all. I am finding that having this Game Design Document is proving to be invaluable in this endeavor. With it I am able to grasp everything that will make up the game and correctly translate the concepts into this blueprint.

One interesting part about doing this is that in order to completely layout some of the systems I have to do research about them first. This includes doing research for the AI, the weather (particle system), and just some good code design practices. I do enjoy reading about the good design practices, but I find the AI to be the most interesting. Fortunately for me, I took a course in AI and also had a little bit of reinforcement in a game programming course. There are several different avenues I can take for the AI and right now I am trying to plan that out. I am really interested in seeing what comes out on the other side since this is the first real AI system I will write.

A side note: I may post the UML diagram of the code once I finish it. I have a feeling it is going to be very large. Another feeling I have is that it will take awhile to actually complete it.