This is a last chapter in BEIT syllabus from mumbai university Engineering Old syllabus

1. Development

2. 6.1 Introduction
– Comparing to other phases development phase is
very small in whole development process
– Coding phase is very important
– Important aspect of game development is its
creativity
– Creativity should be applied on proper place

3. 6.2 The development process
• In earlier days, game projects were very small and a
single programmer or small team was developing
game
• Nowadays with a power and capabilities of game
platforms, large teams had to work for the game
project
• Code developed by all members must be of high
quality and some coding standard need to be followed
• Game engines are divided into a number of distinct
types
• For a good quality code, a number of general
techniques are applied from code inception to system
integration

4. 6.3 code quality
• With a large team, there is every possibility for members
to different coding styles
• This would affect quality of coding and its maintenance
• To ensure that coding style should be uniform
6.3.1 follow coding standard
• As a part of team, the code has to be understood
by every member
• This mandates use of standards
• The software factory model suggest the use of
code across various projects

5. Comments and documentation
• A comment should make the reader understand how
the code does its task rather than what it does
• Comment are made to explain what the statement of
code will have on the rest of the object
• Commenting can help preventing bugs and promote
code understanding
• Good commenting reduces the error in the code and
speeds up the code review process
• “Work in progress” in the code shown with comments
“TODO”

6. Naming and coding conventions
• These conventions are for two main areas:
1. Files and directory structures
2. Classes, functions and variables
– A sensible naming practice makes the purpose of
variable and functions easier to understand
– Example: bSuccess_ is a reference to the Boolean
variable
– Trailing underscore in bSuccess_ indicates that it
denotes the return value and differentiate it from
the local variable

7. • In C++, a class has all members private by default and a structure is a
class that has all members public
• The class naming conventions are as follows:
– Class name has a name prefix C ex. Cball
– Interface name has a name prefix I ex. Idrawable
– Structure name has a name prefix S ex. Sconfig
• The prefixes to variable scope indicates are as follows:
– Global variable ex. g_uiRefCount
– Class member ex. m_uiRefCount
– Static variable ex. s_uiRefCount
– Constant ex. c_uiInitialCount
– Enumeration ex. eStateOk
– Static member ex. ms_uiRefCount
• The prefixes to variable type indicates are as follows:
– Signed Integer i or n
– unsigned integer ui
– Signed short s
– Signed char ch
– Array a
– Pointer p

8. 6.4 Coding priorities
• Coding priorities have to be established as a part
of technical design
• The various aspect of game to be considered are
speed, size, flexibility, portability and
maintainability
1. Speed
2. Size
3. Flexibility
4. Portability
5. Maintainability

9. 6.5 Debugging and module completion
1. Class A
• These bugs are the most severe bugs
• These can occur during installation or crashing the game at the
beginning of the first level
2. Class B
• These bugs may not crash the game but affect the quality
• Example: failure of an event such as the gun may not fire when
used
3. Class C
• These bugs are minor bugs and can be fixed without much of
problem
• These are called cosmetic bugs
• These could be spelling mistakes or user interface glitches
• Priorities assigned according to the higher level severity
a. Logical errors
b. Programming errors
c. Data errors

10. • Out of the three types of errors mentioned above, programming or
code errors easiest to detect
• Instead of testing for each of the other type of errors a generic test
harness is done
6.5.1 Test harness
– Install and run the module under test in a test environment, with input
data in the expected input format
– Generate stubs to emulate the behavior of subroutine modules;
– Capture the actual outcome as generated by the unit under test and
log or display it in a usable form
– Compare the expected outcome with the actual outcome and log a
test verdict for each input test
– Tester is allowed to use all possible options in the user interface for
this
– Test harness application is integrated with the source control system
to log test results and log results are used for audit purpose
– This can also be used for regression testing, as old result can be
compared with new result to check any bugs that have been
introduced into previous working modules
– Testing harness could also be scripted, so that it can automatically run
a whole series of tests

11. 6.6 The seven golden principles of effective design
6.6.1 Reuse
• In game development, code, design patterns are reused
• Software architecture, non functional requirement (speed, flexibility,
portability, etc.) can also be reused
• Mostly common reused classes are foundation classes
• Developer have to used all plug-ins in the early stages of the
development to make quick build+
• This enables the modules to act as black box allowing the internal
changes without affecting the rest of the system
6.6.2 Document
• Documentation is imp for overall success of software development

12. 6.6.3 Design first before implementation
• Game design is an ongoing process
• It starts with an idea; a vision that often develops into a
concept
6.6.4 Schedule tasks
• It is difficult to go with a schedule because of many
reasons
• Non-essential tasks are identified and cut down
• A realistic schedule has to be developed with the available
resources; the various resources are as follows:
• List of reusable components
• List of tools and utilities
• People (game designer, programmers, artists, sound engineers,
internal support team)
• Hardware / software resources

13. 6.6.5 Fix errors early
– The cost of repairing the errors are manifold, if found late then these
are fixed early
– Also the errors propagate if they are not fixed early
– Some useful tips for fixing errors are as follows:
1. Always fix the error first; often this one can correct most of the others
2. Save the file once the error is fixed, and for each change compile and
run again
3. Testing (verification of specifications) should start in the pre-
production stage itself
4. Testing should be done as often as possible by developer in
production stage before delivery
6.6.6 Control the degree of R&D
– To control the degree of research by game developers on latest
technology
– Hardware and game consoles also improve at good speed
– Since developers work on tight schedules, they will have very little time
to try out untested technologies
– For a sequel new technology can be tried
– It is advisable to have backup plan in case new technology has to be
tried/used

14. 6.6.7 Focus on right areas for right amount of
time
– In a structured development methodology, project
review happen at specific, high impact points
involving top management
– If the development process is inefficient and slow,
products are often late-to-market over cost and
not well aligned with user needs

15. 6.7 Five important aspects in game development
1. People
– Talented, experienced and motivated people deliver any kind
of management
– They will find right way around processes or structure where
there is disorder
2. Production Vs creativity
– Production pressure from the business is the need to deliver a
product on time and within the budget
– For this we need to be able to quantify the work and risks by
planning and rescheduling
– Creativity is the heart and soul of game development and
drives us to create better games
– It is a process of curiosity and exploration
– There are no guaranteed outcomes or fixed timeframes and
this is not acceptable from production perspective
– We need to find a way to balance both with the clear
objectives and within the boundaries of each project

16. 3. Phases of production
1. Preproduction
• It is the most creative period of any game, where it is
decided what the game is and how to make it
• The initial stage of preproduction is exploratory and later
technology specifics have to be given for production
2. Production
• It is the period in which the game is being developed
• This is process driven and so more controlled
3. Postproduction
• It is a period in which the finished game is made into a
shippable product
• This is done in two stages: Alpha(making the gameplay fun
and balanced, therefore iterative) and beta(fixing the bug,
is process driven)

17. 4. Skill sets
– Skill set involved in the game development are code, art and design
– Artwork is more of a deterministic discipline
– Work can be split into independent modules, hence adding more
people can complete the job faster
– This estimates can not be very accurate in case of code and design
– Because they need to respond to change requests more often, fix
bugs or deal with hidden complexity
– Hence the job con not finish faster by adding more people
5. Clients
– In games, the stakeholder is an external producer who acts as a
spokesperson for interested parties on the publishers side
– Understanding the external forces is vital for planning the strategy
and management style
– A few things that contribute to the environment in which the project
must survive are as follow-how much trust and freedom will EP
extend

18. 6.8 The three lead balloons
1. Bad Management
– Instead of finding ways to manage people, it is better to build a
process into the team so that imposed management becomes
unnecessary
– The process should promote best practices and conceptual
integrity
– Bad management can affect the process in the following manner:
• Increase the cost and reduce the performance through bureaucratic
overhead
• Hamper the ability of the team to change or adapt to new situation
• Suppress the team’s capacity for innovation and creativity
– Good management allows flexibility, identifies what is important
– Handle the situation carefully
– Every game, every team, every company is unique
– The factor that can affect a project are the size of the team,
corporate culture, internal politics, budget limitations, physical
constraint, etc

19. 2. Rapidly expanding features
– Give extra features that what is planned(beyond
scope) probably to increase popularity and thus sale
– The best way to manage this situation is to priorities
features and keep up the schedule
– Dos and don’ts are as follows:
• Do not write system critical code towards the end
• Represent project progress as a “% complete” of total work
• Give the schedule for lower granularity tasks for accuracy in
estimates
• In each working build, mark features that will work (enable)
and that would not be (disable) work
• Map list of classes to concepts
• Added features can be released as different versions
• Do not add any major feature after first iteration
• Defer lower priority tasks until more than 50% of the project
is complete

20. 3. Coder never open up
– Games are creative processes that involved
interaction among multitalented people such as
coders, designers, artists and writers
– Coders are generally loners, self taught people unlike
artists who generally respect each other’s work and
work very well as a team
– If a coders has insecure feeling and does not open
up, then it will become difficult for others to work
with him/her
– Constant motivation and encouragement can boost
up their moral
– Incentives are awarded for sharing resources,
mentoring, etc to make coders work environment
comfortable