Automatic prototyping in model-driven game development

Abstract

Model-driven game development (MDGD) is an emerging paradigm where models become first-order elements in game development, maintenance, and evolution. In this article, we present a first approach to 2D platform game prototyping automatization through the use of model-driven engineering (MDE). Platform-independent models (PIM) define the structure and the behavior of the games and a platform-specific model (PSM) describes the game control mapping. Automatic MOFscript transformations from these models generate the software prototype code in C++. As an example, Bubble Bobble has been prototyped in a few hours following the MDGD approach. The resulting code generation represents 93% of the game prototype.