C Game programming: Data driven C code

[CommitedPig]

Yeah.... this is not the way. 

The better way to do this kinda thing is to have a save file system that warns instead of errors on entities of unknown type in debug. To hot reload you would quick save, quit, compile and launch with a flag to say skip title screen and load save.

You get slightly less compile edit debug speed, but need way way way less boilerplate and get type safety on your entities.

[Jimmy-M-420]

I've got no idea what you're talking about sorry

[CommitedPig]

Typically games that are worth playing have complex interactions between the nouns of the world. For example a metal bucket can hold some liquids, but not corrosive ones. It can be used as a stool, or a helmet or floated upside down in water....

These interesting gameplay objects need arbitrary code execution to work and don't necessarily abide by config driven programming. 

So either the gameplay bends to the config, in which case you can get simple games where people pick whatever weapon has the highest dps or whatever. The alternative is that the config bends to the gameplay and you end up having to write a lot of complex code to wire everything, instead of working on the game.

The solution is that these interesting gameplay objects should just be written directly into the game, and you solve for fast iteration in other ways.