So, after yet another year of working with the Imperium game engine, I am finally back where I have a fairly playable version of the game on my desktop. Wait a moment, wasn’t that the situation a couple of years ago? Pretty much. Those of you who have followed the game’s development, will remember numerous times where I have posted about cleaning up the code. Over the years, Imperium has gone through more than one rewrite of its code.
I am a perfectionist. This has no doubt contributed substantially to the development time of Imperium. On the other hand, the final product will probably be better than if I had finished the game a year ago (as I might conceivably have done, if I had chosen not to start refactoring the game engine a few years ago.
Looking at the game today, I am pretty satisfied with the results of the work that has gone into the game over the past two years. The code is now structured far better than it was in the old version and while it surely won’t win any awards, it is much more robust now. Sure – crashes to desktop still happen, but tracking down the source of the problem is now much easier. In addition, the game mechanics are now much more transparent, which hopefully will make the game more enjoyable for all concerned.
With that said, I hope never to do this sort of thing again.