Shortening Feedback Loops in a Live Game Development Environment

Game development benefits from short iterations, as it is often concerned with how a game will feel like; something that is hard to anticipate. Live programming aims at reducing the length of iterations during software development to allow for faster exploration and improve program comprehension. We propose a live game development environment providing a more general live programming workflow in game prototyping. The environment supports developers in two aspects: how will a code change affect the look and feel of the game and how does the behavior of the game relate to its code? The proof-of-concept environment ensures short feedback cycles by always keeping the game running while it is being developed. We propose several mechanisms to work with the running game, for example, programmers can automatically replay situations in the game by using an explicit notion of snapshots. We tentatively demonstrate the effectiveness of the live programming features in the context of the development of game prototypes of different genres.