This was recently posted on facebook by a game dev friend of mine (he worked on Tabula Rasa)
Its a good watch, about keeping a project in scope, and being unable to let go of ideas.
[url=http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1017963/Obsessive-Compulsive-Development-Retro-Grade]Linkage to video[/url]
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1) I reject your reality.... and substitute my own
2) Not to be used when upset... will void warranty
3) Stoke me a clipper i will be back for dinner
4) I have seen more intelligence from an NPC AI in TR beta, than from most MMO players.
I can relate to some of that.
While working on kissUI extension for Unity3D, I spend allot more time on the Editor tools and trying to make them work and look much better than most other extensions for Unity3D. Maybe some will appreciate that, but I feel 1/2 of my time was wasted on just that portion of the tool. :P
I submitted it for review just a week ago, and finally got back a reply from Unity... Submission Rejected. :{
When i heard about Casandra( i forgot the name ) for the Avatar, it sounded very impressive, and i wanted to ask all about the procedures used to accomplish it... and more and more i tried to think about the methods, the more i felt something like this might take up allot of time. I hope its just my inexperience in 3d modeling that led me to wonder if this was like me spending 1/2 of my efforts on the kissUI extension, on the Editor tools portion? :P
Even though kissUI is a much more pleasurable extension with Editor tools ,for me, to use than almost anything i've tried to date yet, I honestly dont know if anyone will really appreciate it.
Honestly, i wouldnt worry about MWM wasting time like i did on Eye Candy, since most of the Demos they presented didnt have that Shiny feel, so for the Developers, this is a good sign that no Obsessive amounts of time wasted on Beautifying things that dont need to be, yet. ;)
This isn't a strange feeling though. This "its perfect for me" feeling is really common for when you make things "just how you want them".
I get the same feeling with Foobar2000 skins, and seeing how people lay out their game windows in CoX/Wildstar/World of Warcraft.
Half the time I go "why why why do you do it THAT way? This way would be so much better..."
And then I realise that MY way makes sense due to how *I* do things, and the order in which I do them.
Another example of the harsh realities of this industry. Seems like a nice enough fellow. And it's obvious that he wasn't afraid to put in the time and effort necessary to be successful... and yet he wasn't. I've seen this before. From a "dumb player" perspective (which is the only perspective I can offer) I really don't have an appreciation for the technical under the hood stuff. To be brutally honest, the actual game in the video looked like something from my Atari 2600 days of years gone by with better graphics. The saddest part to me of this whole thing was this: my guess would be that even if the speaker did all the things he suggested as "lessons learned" (make it 2d, push product out sooner, etc) it would not have had an appreciable impact on overall sales. It didn't seem to me the speaker even considered the possibility that the player fun factor in the game itself might be an issue.
The game is actually rather fun to play; but it *isn't* a shooter game, well at least not in the "traditional" sense. I actually bought it *thinking* that it was going to be a "pure shooter".
Its a rhythm game, just like Guitar Hero.
You can buy it on steam right now. Should be less than a dollar right now (95% off in the steam sale. [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/222660/]Retro/Grade[/url]
And the game is rather fun actually for me, although one feature that I think would have worked *wonders* for it more than anything else, would have been the ability to use your own music in the games levels.
The 10 music tracks/levels does limit its replayability, even though it does have several game modes/difficulties, it needed more music for you to play with/against.
I miss the music from [url=https://youtu.be/ZdjlSWipbWM?list=PL4E68B6B0DC50345E]Tempest 2000[/url]. ;)
Oh god, the amount of trouble behind the "spiritual" successtor of THAT game by the original developer is something that boggles the mind.
[url=http://yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=85897]Minters POV on the situation[/url]