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Today is the day I am going to start my first real game project. It will be a Universe simulator. Basically, you can build anything from tiny meteor to quazars and universes. It is going to be my project for an olympiad in IT in my country and I really want to make it perfect(at least a bronze medal).

So, I would like to ask some questions about organization and development methodologies.

Firstly, my plan is to make a time schedule. In it I would write my plans for the next month or two(because that is the time I have). With this exact plan I hope to make my organisation at its best. Of course, if I am doing sth faster than the schedule I would involve more features for the game and/or continue with the tempo I have. Also, for the organisation I would make a basic pseudocode(maybe) and just rewrite it so it is compilable. Like a basic skeleton of everything. The last is an idea I tought of in the moment, but if it is good I will use it.

Secondly, for the development methodologies, obviously, I think of making object-oriented code and make everything perfect(a lot of testing, good code, documentation etc.). Also, I am going to make my own menu system(I read that OpenGL hasn't got very good one). Maybe I would implement it with an xml file, holding the info about position of buttons, text boxes, images and everything. Maybe I would do a specific CSS for it and so on. I think that is very good way of doing the menu system, because it makes the presentation layer separate of the logic. But, if there is a better way, I would do it the better way.

For the logic, well, I don't have much to say. OO code, testing, debuging, good and fast algorithms and so on. Also, a good documentation must be written and this is the area I need to make some research in.

I think that is for now. I hope I have been enough descriptive. If more questions come on my mind, I will ask them.

Edit:

I think of blogging every part of the project, or at least writing down everything in a file or something like that.

My question is: Is my plan of how to do everything around the project good? And if not, what is necessary to be improved and what other things I can involve for making the project good.

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I would suggest you ask some specific questions. You've made a lot of very broad statements that imply very vague questions. – stephelton Nov 14 '11 at 19:32
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Your plan sounds pretty good, but 2 months doesn't seem like enough time to make a 'universe simulator'. Also, your question is fairly specific to you, and the only way anyone could give you an answer is if you followed your plan and told us if you were successful. – thedaian Nov 14 '11 at 19:44
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As stephelton said, please ask specific, answerable questions according to our FAQ. I think blogging about your project is a great idea, and I think the text of this "question" would do well as your first blog post! In addition, if you search this site for keywords such as "object oriented", you may find existing questions and answers that help you solidify your design decisions. Best of luck. – Ricket♦ Nov 14 '11 at 20:00
As you claim that this is your first "real game project", it would be also good to know what past experience have you had in programming, like what other games or programs have you created before. – ChrisC Nov 14 '11 at 20:04
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Writing that GUI system you speak of will take 2 months alone. If you want to do it in a clean OO style and with good documentation it's probably even going to take longer. I guess you need to step back a bit and focus on the core problems and leverage your existing knowledge and tools to reduce the total amount of work. Otherwise you won't complete anything. But I guess we'll see in two months ;) – bummzack Nov 14 '11 at 21:37
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closed as not a real question by Ricket♦ Nov 14 '11 at 20:01

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.