SG_Gavin

Tons of fun! Jen is master of all things color but I often enter random default RGB values until she catches something ugly.

Having the game be playable in short chunks wasn't necessarily an explicit goal but more generally we spend a ton of time trying to get the pacing of everything just right. For everything from tutorial to difficulty to introduction of weapons and game systems, having them be doled out piece-by-piece is something we put a ton of thought into.

And of course having the gameplay start immediately and almost never be interrupted by long cut-scenes or walls of text was important too, hence the narration technique.

We had a playable game in 3 days? 2 days? We don't do any paper design and nothing is proven until we can see it in game through rapid-prototyping.

We're all highly critical of our own work. We've watched people play hundreds of times but whenever we see someone struggling on a particular section or Proving Ground we wish it could have tweaked a bit to provide them a less frustrating experience.

It really depends on what kind of project you're doing. Are you designing the software for the space shuttle or a medical device? You damn well better have a complete design and requirements document. But for something creative like game design? Prototype away! (And be prepared to throw out tons and tons of work.)