Time to get professional

It seems these days that everyone and their aunties are out to make the next-best videogame (and some of them probably will) however the ones that really stand out are the teams that go that extra 10%. Despite what you may have heard the games biz is a professional industry and you should strive to uphold professional values in everything you do;

• Aspire to deliver milestones on time


• Make every element of the product the best that it can be


• Aim to be consistent in your approach and design


• Learn to take constructive criticism


• Listen (and take on board) customer feedback


• Leave "no stone" unpolished

And most important of all...

• Don't skimp on the testing!

Nothing say's amateur more than a game that only works 10% of the time and the excuse "well it worked on my machine just fine!" will just not wash with paying customers. In fact make room for bug testing, playability testing, compatiability testing, module testing and any other types of testing you can think off (and lot's of it) in to the schedule right from the beginning, make sure it's spread throughout the development process so that any issues that arise can be dealt with properly rather than just being bodged at the end.


For every rule there is an exception - and here's mine...

So far you've (hopefully) stuck with this and read it all the way through - as I said at the beginning this document was written to help anwser the regularly posted question of "I've got the next greatest killer game design, what do I do next!". If after reading this and deciding that your WHY is simply that you just want to make games that YOU'd love to play, then feel free to disregard anything and everything I've said. However from personal experience I can tell you (and so will anyother published designer/developer) that a design IS important, a schedule IS important, a goal IS important - but what's most important is that you are doing this for all the right reasons and that you never forget to have some FUN! yourself because without that you wont get past the starting gate.

Remember these are just my thoughts - it's how I currently work and how I plan to keep on working, feel free to take and adapt these ideas and make what ever use of them you can, however I would respectfully request than anyone wishing to copy this information for use on other websits or publications please contact me first (or at the very least give credit where credits due).