XALAVIER
NELSON JR
I’mafull-time
game writer and
narrative designer,
with credits inside
and out of gaming.
G
ames are not built in sequential order, one
level or area after another until the job is
done. Instead, they’re composed of pieces
that are built sporadically. Some
developers even advise building the first
sequence in a game at the end of a project, so that you
can draw on the lessons you learned throughout the
process to create a smooth
opening. Demos, then, can
be something of a
Frankenstein’s monster.“The simple truth of the
matter is demos are
showing something which
looks like a final product
long before there’s a final product,” says Jason Stark of
Ninja Pizza Girldev Disparity Games. “Even when you do
show a finished game you often have to change things so
it presents better as a demo. The first level in most games
is a crappy demo. Pacing is off. Who wants to sit through
a slow, dramatic build-up in a crowded, noisy con floor?”
Joe Mirabello developer of bullet-hell FPS
MOTHERGUNSHIPechoes that feeling. “A great demo
can unfortunately lead to producers and stakeholders
thinking development is further than it is. Oftentimes the
stuff made for demoswasmade for real – just not with
the considerations for how it would be expanded or
supported after the demo. It’s that
system expansion that often leads to
refactoring, and it can lead to periods
after the demo where progress feels
‘stalled’ as everyone plays catch-up.”
This period of ‘catch-up’ comes
with a cost, as Mirabello details.
“Demos demand a focus on polish.
They demand attention to marketing.
They demand dropping all the new
things you want to do just to focus on
a small sliver of the game that may or
may not be in the final game. These
things directly compromise the
progress a developer wants to make
‘on the actual game’. And that’s all
beforethe demo is made. Andthen,
afterwards, there is a debt to pay in
cleaning up the wreckage from the
rush attitude.”
Developers are finding cost-effective ways to bring
their games to event floors, though. Haley Uyrus,
marketing manager of Failbetter Games, shares how the
team broughtSunless Skies, to EGX Rezzed. “Since we’rein a hugely busy time of development, we couldn’t spare
much time on making a specific show build. What we did
for Rezzed was create a special save file we loaded up
each time when someone sat down to play. This was our
quality analyst’s (Lesleyann White) idea, as she’s great at
coming up with things that are effective but easy for our
team to manage. This save started fans out within the
main port, New Winchester,
so players could experience
our stories right away and
also so they couldn’t get lost
in space right at the start.”
Charlotte Gore,
developer of adventure
gameYorkshire Gubbins,
also managed to bring a
piece of her game to EGX Rezzed with a few last-minute
tweaks. “I did a bit of an upgrade to Verb School
[Yorkshire Gubbins’ tutorial], updating the background art
with more details, redoing the colour grading and did a
‘camera pass’ – this is where I script close ups etc. It’s a
feature of the current work-in-progress stuff, but not yet
in the main game. It was a good opportunity for me to test
how players responded to this sort of feature, and, I’m
happy to say, they reacted well!”WHEN IT HITS HOME
Moo Yu, co-developer ofKnights and Bikes, put the cost of
show build development in concrete terms. “We’ve made
two show builds forKnights and Bikesand each one has
taken a month to make,” Yu says. “The hope is always that
this is all work that we’d be doing eventually anyway and
that we’re just doing it a bit earlier than we would have
otherwise. ... What’s interesting when you start making a
show build is that it all becomes real. While you’re in
development, it’s easy to let things slide or think you’ll
come back to something, but the moment you mentally
clock that real people are going to play this build, your
perspective quickly shifts from that of a developer to that
of a player, which immediately leads to tons of
improvements on the game and lots of ideas that you
hadn’t considered from the other view.”
The devs I spoke to reported gaining valuable feedback
as a result of their experiences. Arvydas Žemaitis of
Shoppe Keep 2developer Strange Fire claims to update
their builds on the show floor, over 20 times per event.
“That first half hour is the time that will either hook your
player, or make them ask for a refund. Call it a life-or-
death scenario. And if you can make the experience of the
people who try your game before it hits the market a
better one with a unique show build – all the better.”“PERSPECTIVE QUICKLY SHIFTS
FROM THAT OF A DEVELOPER
TO THAT OF A PLAYER”SHOWING OFF
How games are built and rebuilt for conventions
Inside Dev
MAKING GAMES IS HARD