A set of OOP and clean architecture principles that teach Savi to build scalable, maintainable game projects from day one — or clean up existing ones. No game-specific code, just battle-tested wisdom.
Get opens your newest game with this mod ready to add.
Added Principle 24: Trace, Don't Theorize — stop guessing at causes and trace the actual execution path from input to output. Find the exact divergence point before writing a fix.
Added Principle 23: Don't Intervene During Concurrent Modifications. When multiple processes are editing shared resources, hands off until they all finish. Transient errors during parallel edits are expected — judge the result, not the process.
Added 6 new performance optimization principles (17-22): Don't Pay for What Didn't Change, Compute Once at Spawn, Events Beat Timers, Centralize Expensive Queries, Throttle Queries by Freshness Need, Audit Before You Optimize. Updated When to Use section with performance triggers. Now 22 principles total.
Added 4 new principles (13-16) covering persistent data architecture: One Gateway for All Persistent Data, Define Your Data Shape Before You Store It, Serialize Dangerous Operations, Delete Means Lock Then Delete. Also added new engine survival tip about event listener accumulation across script reloads.
Added Principle 12: Fix the Pattern, Not the Instance — When you find a bug, audit everything that could break the same way and fix all instances in one sweep before reporting success. Born from a real session where the same invisible-collision bug was fixed one object at a time across five rounds instead of once.
Added Principle 11: Rebuilding a System Means Owning Every Reference to It. When you replace or rebuild any system, you must trace and update every consumer that referenced the old version. New code alongside old code is a silent time bomb.
Added Principle 10 (Changing the Blueprint Doesn't Rebuild the House). Code changes are prospective, not retroactive.
Added Principle 9 (Read Existing Code Before Writing New Code). Investigation is faster than invention.
Added Principle 7 (Never Claim Fixed Without Verifying) and Principle 8 (Trust the User's Report Over Your Data). Hard-won lessons from the battlefield.
Removed the 'when not to refactor' exception list. If the creator installed the mod, they want it applied. No gatekeeping based on project size.
Clarified fresh vs existing project guidance. Principles always apply to new work regardless of project size. The 'when not to apply' section now only governs the refactor decision, not the principles themselves.
