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Explicit domain modelling in video games

Published:29 June 2011Publication History

ABSTRACT

The state-of-the-art in software engineering for game engines, recommends the use of a component-based software architecture for managing the entities in a game. A component-based architecture facilitates the definition of new types of entities as collections of components that provide basic pieces of functionality, providing a flexible software that can adapt to changes in game design. However, such flexibility comes with a price, both in terms of software understanding and error checking: a game where entity types are just run-time concepts is harder to understand than one with an explicit hierarchy of entity types; and error checking that, in a more traditional inheritance-based architecture, would come from type safety at compile time is now lost. To alleviate these problems, a component-based architecture employs blueprints, external data files that specify the particular combination of components for every entity type.

In this paper we propose an extension to the component-based architecture, substituting blueprints with a full fledged domain model in OWL, including a description of the entities, its attributes and components, along with the messages they exchange. We also describe authoring tools for building such a model and show how the model improves software understanding and error checking.

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  • Published in

    cover image ACM Other conferences
    FDG '11: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games
    June 2011
    356 pages
    ISBN:9781450308045
    DOI:10.1145/2159365

    Copyright © 2011 ACM

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    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    • Published: 29 June 2011

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    FDG '11 Paper Acceptance Rate31of107submissions,29%Overall Acceptance Rate152of415submissions,37%

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