04-12-2016, 08:07 PM
I've been thinking. Our little project is having some structural problems. And I may have a (definitely controversial) solution.
I suggest we start developing Colobot 2. Colobot: Gold Edition's current state of missions and exercises should remain unchanged since this is how original Colobot was, but the code and data can be still updated as long as we don't change the game too much. Colobot 2 should be our current priority. Large scale refactoring and rewrite. Colobot is already stable enough and our current version system doesn't make sense anymore, so this is a good time to change things. We are changing the game a lot, redefining basics and adding incompatible features, so this is clearly not something we should be doing in our current project, we should be doing this in a new game.
New programming course should become an integral part of Colobot 2 and will be the first thing we develop for it. We don't have any great plans for a story and we probably don't need it right now. Programming course can be independent of what the story will bring, and since it is meant to be a sequel to Colobot, there is no problem with "spoilers". We can add a substory to it, whatever, it can work just fine. And this is something we can (and probably should) concentrate our efforts on without being too strict about what is and what is not "right". Refactoring CBot will definitely fall under this category as well, so there is likely no necessity to remain fully backwards compatible.
Colobot: Gold Edition can evolve in its own pace but I believe it won't be evolving fast enough for all of us to remain in this project for long. So we should make a step forward and begin a new adventure. I'm pretty sure we are ready for it. At least some of us are...
I suggest we start developing Colobot 2. Colobot: Gold Edition's current state of missions and exercises should remain unchanged since this is how original Colobot was, but the code and data can be still updated as long as we don't change the game too much. Colobot 2 should be our current priority. Large scale refactoring and rewrite. Colobot is already stable enough and our current version system doesn't make sense anymore, so this is a good time to change things. We are changing the game a lot, redefining basics and adding incompatible features, so this is clearly not something we should be doing in our current project, we should be doing this in a new game.
New programming course should become an integral part of Colobot 2 and will be the first thing we develop for it. We don't have any great plans for a story and we probably don't need it right now. Programming course can be independent of what the story will bring, and since it is meant to be a sequel to Colobot, there is no problem with "spoilers". We can add a substory to it, whatever, it can work just fine. And this is something we can (and probably should) concentrate our efforts on without being too strict about what is and what is not "right". Refactoring CBot will definitely fall under this category as well, so there is likely no necessity to remain fully backwards compatible.
Colobot: Gold Edition can evolve in its own pace but I believe it won't be evolving fast enough for all of us to remain in this project for long. So we should make a step forward and begin a new adventure. I'm pretty sure we are ready for it. At least some of us are...
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless."
~The Tao of Programming
~The Tao of Programming