Conformity vs. experience in the game development process – 8/4/17
Conformity vs. experience in the game development process
By Abdelaziz Ben Yahia, WPI ’18, Fulbright
Game design is heavily dependent on players’ feedback. A team of game developers is pretty tied to their own ideas and creations. Often, developers won’t conform to the rest and will not miss a chance to debate if something doesn’t go along with their beliefs or way of thinking.
However, we will make edits if 1 in 3 testers don’t like our product, even though it does hurt to see your hard work not liked but everyone that tried it.
Now imagine if a tester with 5 + years of experience, gives you negative feedback that contradicts with all the information you collected from all the other players.
Well, what you do, is apply the tips and tricks of the experienced tester.
Playtesting Leap A Head
They are the one that created so many games, tested hundreds for other developers and faced tough challenges doing so. Their advice is trustworthy and worth the risk.
After going through all these steps, you feel that you are totally in a state of “cognitive dissonance” with inconsistent thoughts.
But you should rest assured, if you listen to Bill Gardner from The Deep End Games talk. You must remember “You are going to be wrong … and it’s okay!” The man is the creative director on Perception!
Writing guidelines for our next fellows of MassDigi’s Live Studio is a responsibility.
They will learn from our mistakes and pass on the legacy. Our team’s game Leap A Head is the fruit of 3 months of hard work and teamwork too! Every member contributed with their skills and excellent mindset and we believe the MassDigi’s next generation will make the product even better.
Ultimately, I would say that feedback gave us that confidence and feeling of having people saying Go ahead we got your back! it helped us aim all our effort in the right path, as I once heard a producer from Harmonix say “velocity doesn’t mean closure,” since then, every game or project proved it again .
