Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
What to avoid
These are some common mistakes that can be counterproductive.
•
Losing the big picture
: While working on individual elements of a project,
don't lose sight of what the final goal is. It is fun, exciting, and very rewarding
to get one thing or another up and running, which is why a secondary feature
may work its way up the priority list. If this happens and it works with the over-
all design, great! Just remember to check that it doesn't unseat something crit-
ical to the design's original intent.
•
Feature creep
: Sometimes good ideas come along at the right time, some-
times not. Be careful not to add in something that breaks the existing app. Also
the process of continually adding features means the project's milestones are
constantly shifting, which makes it very difficult to hit them.
•
Feature attachment
: Just like in romance, it is easy to fall in love with the
concept of a game feature. Once this happens it is difficult to see the reality
that the feature (or relationship) just doesn't work as hoped. When this hap-
pens you just have to bite the bullet and toss it out, otherwise you can wind up
burning yourself out trying to fix the unfixable.
•
Too much time and money
: The whole point of prototyping is to save you
time and money. If you find that the prototype is costing more than you
budgeted, consider paring back the features or possibly pulling the plug on the
project.
