My Experience with OOP and Software Design Patterns in Game Programming

When I first got into game programming, one of the core concepts people talked about was Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). In simple terms, OOP is about organizing code into objects—each object holds its own data and behavior. This helps make code clearer, especially in games where you have players, enemies, bullets, and so on—all things that have both data and actions.

Another concept that often comes up is software design patterns. These are tried-and-tested ways to solve common coding problems in a structured, maintainable way. In game development, design patterns like Singleton, State, and Observer help make code more flexible and easier to manage, especially in bigger projects.

My Honest Experience with OOP and Design Patterns

My experience using OOP and software design patterns has been mostly positive. They’ve helped me write clearer, more organized code in many projects. But I also realized that in some smaller or simpler projects, applying these patterns felt unnecessary or even like overkill.

That’s where the idea of YAGNI comes in—“You Aren’t Gonna Need It.” Early in my journey, I sometimes spent too much time designing code to be super flexible or scalable when in reality, that flexibility wasn’t needed. Especially for small games or prototypes, all that structure just slowed me down.

How My Approach Evolved

Over the years, as I worked on more real, published game projects, my mindset started to shift. Instead of jumping straight into code with OOP structures and patterns, I now stop and ask myself a few simple questions first:

• What exactly do I want this feature to do?
• What’s the simplest and cleanest way to get it working?
• Does this feature need to be scalable or modifiable? Or is it a one-time thing?

More often than not, I find that many features don’t need to be overly flexible. For example, a “Daily Reward” feature is basically the same across many games. I don’t need to reinvent the system every time—I just build it once in a modular, tidy way using solid OOP principles (especially focusing on modularity from the SOLID principles). Then I can reuse that same module in future projects.

That balance between simplicity and structure has been a big part of my growth as a game programmer.

Mixing in Functional and Data-Driven Programming

Besides OOP, I’ve also explored functional programming and data-driven approaches like Entity-Component-System (ECS). Both have their strengths. For instance, functional programming makes certain logic cleaner and safer. ECS is great for managing lots of similar objects in performance-heavy games.

But I don’t think it’s about choosing just one style. Depending on the project, sometimes mixing OOP, functional, and data-driven approaches makes the most sense. The key is to keep the codebase organized and avoid turning it into spaghetti code.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I believe OOP and software design patterns are valuable tools. Best practices like SOLID principles definitely help in writing maintainable, modular code. But chasing perfection through over-engineering can actually hurt progress—especially in game development where deadlines and simplicity often matter more.

Now, I try to keep things lean and purposeful: Use structure where it helps, skip it where it doesn’t. Build tidy, modular features I can reuse. And most importantly, focus on making the game work and feel good first—then worry about making the code beautiful if and when it actually matters.