Patterns and games...

Actually i''m not working in the Gameindustry but developing Software for other Industries. So I also have to do with Design Patterns and read some books about this. In the last time I used Design-Patterns for a 2D-Graphic Engine. In the Design of the 2D-Graphic Engine there are several Patterns inside. For example the Composite-Pattern is a Pattern which is very useful for modelling Graphical Objects. The introduction of the Composite-Pattern was the Keypoint in the Designphase of the 2D-Graphic Engine. I think when you want design a game in a object-oriented way, Design Pattern can help there on many different Designproblems(in my freetime i''m currently design my own Game, Graphic-Engine and the other stuff). Naturally not in every aspect does Patterns help us, in such time-critical Applications like games there exists situations where speed is more important than a elegant object-oriented Design. But in many other situations Patterns give us the possibility to create a very consistent and efficient Objectmodel and give us solution for common Designproblems. I do not know exactly how often Design-Patterns were used in the Gamedevelopment-Industry, but in many other Softwaredevelopment-Companies they will be used very intensity. And I think that there exists many Patterns which are especially useful when developing Graphicsystems or other Game-related systems (for example I think the following Patterns can be used for Graphicsystems: Composite, Chain of Responsibility, Flyweight, Decorator, Facade, Singleton, ...) If you want know more about Design-Patterns I recommended the book "Design-Patterns" from the Gang of Four. I''m also interested in you opinion about Design-Patterns and there use.

Peter Gmeiner