Hi, everyone!

Mike Worth here; just throwing out an interesting observation that I just experienced.

So, I’m watching Game 5 of the Flyers/Devils playoffs (Go, Philly), and I’m irritated. The Flyers are not looking good. They’re harried, they’re spazzy, my favorite line (Briere/Hartnell/Giroux) can’t get any offensive momentum. And, it doesn’t help that my daughter keeps hopping up on my lap asking, “When are the good guys going to score?”

Finally, at one point, my (exasperated) wife says to the screen, “Jeez, Philly, just calm down, stop looking for quick spazzy fixes, and play your game! You have plenty of time to make this a win!” Sure enough, the Flyers heard (and listened) to my Sarah, and settled down to a smooth play style, and scored two goals.

When I started thinking about that, I realized that that is a pretty good analogy for proper game development. Right now, we’re in the middle of polishing and testing our title, and it’s a grind (or so I’m told, I’m not on the testing team right now). When you’re deep in the middle of those minutiae, and it seems as though you’re never going to get your game bugs ironed out, and the game feels soooo stale… a quick fix or an impulse to quickly try to close it out is very, VERY appealing.

Especially with all the games coming out on web-based portals (Kongregate, NewGrounds, etc.). It’s easy to look at a game that’s out there, say, “You know, it’s pretty close to our game, let’s just grab some ideas from it, finish this thing, and get it out there, making money!”

And that’s really, really dangerous. That’s “playing harried, playing spazzy”. A studio forms because the members have strong individual and group identities. It’s important to play to those identities, to “settle down, and play our game”, to allow our studio time to hash through our product properly, without jumping on the hottest thing to go for a quick fix.

Fortunately (sharing the cetacean love here), our dev team is very good about taking our time, making it thorough, and “settling down and playing our game.” Aaron and Jordan are very meticulous, and really understand the value, not only of polish, but also of making the game be a reflection of us, something unique, something memorable. That type of attitude creates not just a product that people enjoy, but a company that people can identify with, and get behind.

So, take some lessons from the Flyers. Take your time, work your strategy, and allow your game the time to “earn the win”.

Fly on, celestial cetaceans!

Mike