The path Atatürk showed and the way we work

In yesterday's post we explained why we are writing our own grand strategy engine. In this one we want to look at the thinking behind that decision. Tying a software studio's way of working to the path Atatürk showed may sound like a big claim. For us it is not; most of the decisions we make in our daily work come from that path.

Relying on science#

The truest guide in life is science.

Atatürk said this to teachers in Samsun in 1924. When writing a game engine, it means something very concrete. We do not assume a system is fast; we measure it. We do not say we hope a calculation gives the same result on every computer; we run the same test on different processors and compare the results bit for bit. Where we were wrong, we change the decision and write down why.

Measurement instead of guesswork, reasons instead of habit. That is exactly what letting science guide us means.

Independence is not only political#

Atatürk's idea of independence covered not just borders but also the economy, culture and knowledge. For a nation to make its own decisions, it has to be able to produce for itself.

Software is no different. Every tool, platform and engine we use comes with someone else's rules. We cannot build all of them ourselves, and we are not trying to. But we decided to write the heart of the work ourselves: the simulation that computes the world of a strategy game. We understand independence not as rejecting everything, but as keeping control of what matters most.

Believing in what the Turkish nation can do#

The Turkish nation is hardworking, the Turkish nation is intelligent.

This sentence from the Tenth Anniversary Speech is less a compliment than a responsibility. Grand strategy is a genre that very few studios in the world can make. It is easy to say "this is beyond us." Instead, we chose to break the work into small, testable pieces and build them one by one. We write down openly what each phase finished and which test it passed. Belief only means something with work like that.

Peace at home, peace in the world#

Wanting to tell our own history does not mean closing the door on anyone. We are building the engine so that it is not tied to any single game and can be modded. That way other teams, including developers from other countries, can build their own games on it. We want the right to tell our own story, and we are building a tool that gives everyone the same right.

A path is understood by walking it#

The path Atatürk showed lives less in words repeated at ceremonies than in decisions made every day: relying on knowledge, standing on our own feet, believing we can do it and working for it, and keeping peace in mind. MKA Engine is still in development and there is a long road ahead. We will keep writing here about how we walk it.