I understand that game developers type thousands of lines of code for a single game such as any version of a game anyone of us plays every day. How could their source code stored in many files of the game can be executed through a single application and I can play the game itself? What is their code’s journey to our PCs?
In: Technology
As you said, it starts with thousands of lines of code and also other assets, like images and data files that the program needs.
Then the code is compiled. Think of the compilation process as what a translator does when communicating between two people who don’t know the same language. The compiler takes the written code (typically in English sorta) and then translates it to the what the computer understands, which is called machine code.
Then, the code is tested. Then bugs are fixed, code re-compiled, then tested again. This loop happens hundreds if not thousands of times during game development. Actually, many companies do night builds with automated build systems, so that the testers can test fresh builds of the code every morning when they come into the office.
Once a company feels that the quality is enough for release, they take all the files that have been tested, and publish it on the service and/or burn it to a DVD or whatever type of media they are going to use.
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