Complicate Your Code Unnecessarily

What happened

Maybe you’ve heard that implementing doors in video games is pretty hard. Well, I’m here to tell you that is nothing compared with putting in a realistic elevator! Which is what I learned the hard way when I was working as a programmer on Thimbleweed Park.

Basically: we complicated our code unnecessarily!

Intro to Bad Advice and Worst Practices Series

I’m Jenn Sandercock and this is Jenn’s Generally Good Game Production Advice — Bad Advice Edition. Bad Advice Edition is about worst practices that I’ve either seen or done in my games career.

It turns out you can screw up in a lot of different ways while making games. And this mini series is meant to show you the breadth and depth of that, while also giving you practical advice so you can and will survive bad things happening, even if you’re the one doing the bad thing.

 

Our bad advice for today is: Complicate your code unnecessarily!

This example falls into the Scope & Vision category.

How It Happened

We thought all our special cases were super essential to the design.

• There was:
  • an interactable NPC inside the elevator,
  • a close up scene to choose the floor,
  • player-characters you could switch between while the elevator was moving,
  • a puzzle to get to the top floor
  • AND a real time puzzle to watch an NPC using the elevator.

I’m out of breath trying to explain it all. It was soo complex!

Why it was Bad

We wasted time re-writing the code from scratch THREE times. And at release, where do you think the bugs were in the game?

In the elevator area!

AND to top that all off: no one noticed how cool the elevator code was. Not one fan, not one reviewer. Which is such a pity. Because have you seen our elevator? How cool is it?!

How to Recover if this is Happening to You

Simplify, and simplify again. Rip out the code, if possible. We could have created a simple cutscene instead!

 

 

How to Avoid This Ever Happening

Design and programming should talk early and constantly to simplify as much as possible.

If something is going to be complicated, make sure it’s going to be something people that people will go “oooh” and “aaah” about. That is, it needs to be a key selling point of your entire game

And remember: Don’t complicate your code unnecessarily!

Conclusion

Thanks for joining me today. Let me know if this has happened to you before. I’d love to hear your stories!

Hope you will join me next time.