Paul Gestwicki's Blog
I have been tinkering the last several months with a videogame prototype inspired by some of the tabletop roleplaying games that my boys and I have been playing. Similar to how my game The Endless Storm of Dagger Mountain explored PbtA mechanisms, I've wondered about the strengths and weaknesses of interpreting Forged in the Dark systems into a text-based videogame. Last week, once I put away most of the work of the Fall semester, I was able to dive more deeply into work on a prototype. I felt really good about it until a few days ago, when I came to doubt—not for the first time—some decisions I had made in the software architecture. So, in this, my sixth December blog post, I want to unpack some of the considerations that I have put into these efforts so that I might stop programming in circles.
I decided to use Dart and Flutter for the game. I teach with Dart and Flutter in CS222 because I legitimately enjoy the technology stack. I am competent with them but would not call myself an expert. I have only built two public systems with these tools: my Thunderstone Quest Randomizer and a little timer utility to help with Promotion and Tenure Committee meetings. The former is much larger than the latter, and if I were to build it again, I would do it differently, but I keep maintaining it for myself and other fans of the card game.
