Combinant® Course Series
Eight live sessions. We apply Combinant® Design to a real product — a complete Breakout game — and at every turning point, we stop and solve it together. Then we recombine, measure, and find out: does the cost of change go down?
Over eight sessions, I show you how Combinant® Design works in practice — by building a complete Breakout game from scratch, step by step, decision by decision.
At every design turning point, we stop. We look at the problem together, discuss alternatives, and work through the solution on a shared board. You're part of the design process.
When a step is complete, we go into the code. We play with the objects — move them, rearrange them, recombine them and see what new products emerge from the same building blocks. Then we measure: effort per feature, cost per change, recombination ratio.
By the end, we have the full picture in numbers.
You write software for a living and you've noticed something: every project costs about the same or more, no matter how many times you've solved similar problems before. The promise of reuse never materialized. Your codebases grow, but your speed doesn't. This course shows a different approach — and measures whether it works.
You don't need deep Python knowledge. If you can read a function, a class and run a script, you're ready. The method works in any language. Python is simply how we make it visible here.
You've seen six ways to design Breakout in The Breakout Game: Six Designs Compared — or maybe you haven't. Either way, this course shows a seventh approach and measures it. Not in theory. Not on slides. You watch the design unfold, you participate in the decisions, and you see the numbers change session by session.
By the end, you'll have seen multiple working products built from the same building blocks, a metrics dashboard showing the cost of every feature, and a clear picture of whether Combinant® Design delivers on its promise — reducing the cost of change through recombinable design.
This is the course at the heart of Combining Breakout — the first product in the Decreasing Cost Challenge. Three products, three different domains — all built with Combinant® Design to find out: can this method actually reduce the cost of change?
Next in the Challenge: → Combining MiniVi → Combining Trading Alerts
Prerequisites: None. We strongly recommend attending or watching The Breakout Game: Different Ways to Design It first, but it’s not required.
8 sessions · 2.5 hours each
SESSION 1: GETTING STARTED
We define the game and build the first working piece.
SESSION 2: THE BALL MOVES
The first movement appears on screen.
SESSION 3: THE BALL COLLIDES
The first interaction forces the first design decisions.
SESSION 4: THE PLAYING FIELD AND THE GAME
The main elements come together and the game starts to work.
SESSION 5: BREAKING THE GAME APART
We stop. We look at what we built. We break it apart — and the cost of each new thing drops.
SESSION 6: ADDING IMPROVEMENTS
New features, same pieces. We measure what they cost. The cost keeps dropping.
SESSION 7: A SIMPLE PONG
Same pieces, different game. We recombine, we play, we measure. The curve emerges.
SESSION 8: THE DASHBOARD
The full picture, in numbers.
Francesco Cirillo. Senior software designer, Extreme Programming pioneer. Decades of designing software led to a question: how do you reduce the cost of change? Combinant® Design is his answer.
Register — $125 Early adopter price
The complete final codebase. Public repository.
Track your own effort per feature, cost per change, recombination ratio.
The final product. The real numbers. Did the cost of change go down?