Showcasing the Game Engine workflow

I read a book a while ago that encourages artists, writers, and developers to showcase their work-in-progress. If you haven't had a chance to read it, I recommend it. It is called Show Your Work by Austin Kleon. The author says that people are equally interested in your final product as in your struggles to make it a reality.

I took Austin Kleon's advice and started showcasing my half-baked engine in Vimeo. Every time I implemented a new feature I made sure to document it and post it on Vimeo.

Yesterday I noticed that I had never made a video that shows, nor written about, the engine's workflow. And that is what I want to share with you today:

 
 

You don't need to know everything to start

Don't think you need to know everything to start developing a game engine. You don't. The key is to implement as you learn and to experiment as you discover.

Do you have to be a great programmer to develop a game engine?

You may think that to develop a game engine you need to be a great programmer or an expert in computer graphics. As someone who has developed one, let me tell you the main quality required to develop a game engine.

Break things, learn and repeat

You don't become an engineer, a developer, a maker, by just solving equations or following a tutorial. To become one you need to break things, learn and repeat.

I hate documenting source code

If you hate documenting your source code, you are not alone. I also hate it. There is no way to avoid it. Luckily, there are free tools which make documenting your source code a bit less frustrating.