vrengames

The Secrets of Versioning

Added 2017-05-19 06:34:29 +0000 UTC

I'm sure you've seen version numbers come up a lot. Lab Rats is currently on v0.6.1, working on v0.7, another game might be on v1.2.2a, or v2e.2. So what does this arcane code of numbers and digits mean? How do developers assemble it?

The answer: We make it up, and it doesn't really mean anything at all. The Wikipedia page on software versioning is a fun read , but it boils down to setting some sort of arbitrary rule when you start creating the software and sticking to it throughout development.

Here's how Lab Rats version number is constructed, we'll use the current version of v0.6.1 as our example.

First we have the '0', which indicates the game isn't feature complete yet. When everything has been added to the game that was initially planned that will roll over to a 1, and the rest of the version numbers will reset.

The second number (the '6') is the major version number, which are large blocks of content that have been added. Each update this goes up by 1. The last number is shows if the version is a patron version (x.0) or a public version (x.1). This can be left out if the difference isn't important, so v0.7 refers to the content that will be in both the public and patron version, but v0.7.0 is specifically the patron only version that is released.

Finally, if there are major issues with a release and I release a patched version it will have a letter appended, starting with 'a', then 'b' if a second patch for the same version is released, and so on. So far this has only happened twice, fingers crossed it doesn't come up much in the future.

Hope you found that bit of programing trivia interesting!