I’ve spent the last several years in Godot Engine, where it is easy to run a single scene at a time. Each scene is essentially an OOP class that combines visual elements, configuration, and scripted logic. Variables in the script can be “exported,” which means they become editable in the scene editor. Press F6, and you’re running just the current scene, separate from the rest of the application. This makes it very easy to iterate on individual components, such as a health bars, single cards in a deckbuilder, an animatic, etc.
For reference, here’s an example from a recent game jam project. The Player scene is open, and on the right, you can see some configuration that is either specified in my script or inherited from its superclass. Running in the foreground is just the player scene, where I can tinker with things like size and speed without running the whole game.
I haven’t found an equivalent workflow in Flutter. My game is decomposed into widgets following the usual principles of OOP, just as I would do with scenes in Godot Engine. I am not sure what the fastest way is to iterate on the design of each piece. Making multiple main entrypoints for each significant widget seems wasteful. Automated testing isn’t what I want either, since I’m interested in rapid iteration and not specification nor regression protection.
Does anyone have a good workflow to share to assist in the rapid, iterative development of pieces of the game experience?
In case it’s relevant, I’m using Android Studio as my development environment.