Build case · Product
BabelDestiny: thirteen documents before the code
The project where the method was applied without shortcuts — and where the cost of that discipline is clearest.
The problem
Game engines grow until they become unmaintainable: hardcoded content, rules scattered across the code, changes that break what you didn't touch. I knew how that story ends because it's the same as any enterprise system built without architecture first.
The architecture decision
Write the full contract hierarchy —vision, domain, architecture, data-driven rules, vertical slice, AI rules— before the first line. Content lives as versioned, validated data, not as code. When two decisions clash, the higher-level document wins.
The principle it proves
Architecture before code. The discipline is paid up front in documentation and collected later in changes that break nothing.
Current state
In development. The procedural engine generates 100 floors from rules: none of them are hardcoded.