Releasing partly obfuscated code

[TheCreator]

If I loose interest in the project for good, I will definitely upload its source so people can use it at will. This is something I really doubt it will happen though, because this is my life's project, under development for 7 years now.

That's probably what every single developer thinks (and says) before he abandons his project .

[Endorya]

If I loose interest in the project for good, I will definitely upload its source so people can use it at will. This is something I really doubt it will happen though, because this is my life's project, under development for 7 years now.

That's probably what every single developer thinks (and says) before he abandons his project .

Agreed! But 7 years under development... When I look back at all that has been done so for, it is like its impossible to stop now, unless my life suffers a major change. Well, lets see what happens next!

I'm thing I forgot to mention about the editor is that it will mostly act as a model generator for items, quests, planets, exploration sites, creatures (including NPCs) and objectives, so even if everyone knows how the game works it will be impossible to foreseen its results when starting a new adventure with a new terraforming seed. The editor won't be able to edit elements from "that" particular generated world.

[miki151]

My theory is that this kind of one-person long term projects get scrapped mostly because of low code quality. It's really hard to keep good design and while adding features, so the code gets messier, and messier, until you're too tired of it and start working on something else. If that's the case, it's hard to go and publicly release it, and you're not likely to start cleaning it up after you've just abandoned it

[Endorya]

My theory is that this kind of one-person long term projects get scrapped mostly because of low code quality. It's really hard to keep good design and while adding features, so the code gets messier, and messier, until you're too tired of it and start working on something else.

And that's pretty much the reason why I decided to begin the game with an editor, so that all design is settle down trough it fist without having me constantly restructuring everything whenever I decided to change or add stuff around. So far so good.

[Anvilfolk]

That actually sounds like a pretty decent idea. Forcing yourself to think about how everything is going to work before implementing. I tend to do that by using XML files that define a lot of data - but I've found myself changing stuff a TON due to implementation details once I start coding the game, so that might be a caveat.

[Kevin Granade]

Like that's going to happen. You first need a Nethack level game to get people involved in any way.

Please take a look at Cataclysm-DDA's contribution history.
https://www.ohloh.net/p/cataclysm-dda

Yes it was a big game already when I picked up development last September, but I sure as hell wouldn't call it "Nethack level".  Now maybe....

I'm not saying this WILL happen, but you can be sure it won't if it's closed-source.  Before I started working on Cataclysm, I really wanted to work on @X-com, but it's closed-source, so it wasn't an option.  Lucky for Cataclysm I guess.

[mrrstark]

You know, re-reading this, if your goal is to keep the secrets of the game etc. one way to go that's way better than obfuscation is separation of engine and module.

It's hard to do right, takes way more discipline, but for example, Tome4 does it with the T-Engine totally separate from the Tome module.

You could distribute the engine open source, and the module as binaries. The engine code can be perfectly maintained for readability, understanding, and expansion, any your module can keep all its secrets.

[Kevin Granade]

That might technically work, but I don't imagine you're going to get all that much community support (from developers, players frequently don't care) for an engine that doesn't work without a closed-source component.  Maybe in the past when there were no compelling alternatives, but there are a lot of open source game engines now.