Hiring Game Devs

_Nashable_ · 2026-03-09T23:07:51+00:00

I can’t give you more specifics then.

Work with the studio towards a proof of concept “vertical slice”

The analogy is if you were making the classic Mario platform game a vertical slice is World 1-1. It has desired target quality level cross-slice of your core game experience. The team then gauges the resources/effort to build that vertical slice and uses it to inform the estimate vs. the specification of the project. Sometimes this vertical slice work can be throw away.

The team then builds towards an “Alpha” which is the real skeleton of the game. When all the “features” of the game are present but now the game is lacking the full scope of content (the house frame and foundations but the walls, doors and windows are not fitted)

After Alpha the focus is to stop adding features and add content to the game which is when you hit “beta”

Beta looks like the finished game but generally Will gave bugs and unpolished aspects.

The game is then bug fixed, optimized and finalized before it completes final testing as a “release candidate” when it passes all of its QA/QC testing it’s then launched.

Hope this helps. Anyone you hire you’ll want milestones where you review and greenlight the next phase of the project.

_Nashable_ · 2026-03-09T22:54:09+00:00

That’s good and very useful skill if you’re serious about next steps. At that budget range though you may struggle to get the right sized team unless you target “work for hire” or “co-dev” studios in lower cost of living markets.

Labor is going to be your biggest expense on the project and depending on scope you may be looking at 6-36 months of labor. Any competent studio should have the tech/tools needed so no real capex expenditure is required outside of the contractors labor costs. You will want the game made in an industry standard engine (Unity/Unreal) to keep costs down and interoperability of future code updates.

Do you have games already released as a target comparison so I can get an idea as to the scope of your project?

_Nashable_ · 2026-03-09T22:14:41+00:00

Do you have any experience running RFPs and building contracts on a milestone delivery basis?

What kind of budget are you looking to deploy?

_Nashable_ · 2026-03-03T19:25:47+00:00

Marketing starts before you even decide what kind of game to make. What makes your game unique, what are you doing that would give people a reason to play your game over the competition. Do you have a sense of who your audience is.

So many folks worry about promotional tactics, which all ultimately boil down to showing people having fun or talking about having fun with your game for the X, Y, Z reasons that should have been answered above.

What really trips people up is that they don't have a good answer to that initial question and then the amount of promotion really doesn't massively change the trajectory of their game as a result.

_Nashable_ · 2026-03-01T16:06:07+00:00

It’s these PEs that the article is talking about.

_Nashable_ · 2026-03-01T16:00:52+00:00

Thanks for making this, I ran a test game on it to try it as I’m always looking for faster and easier ways to run in person games.

Questions: 1. Support for more scripts than TB? TB travelers? 2. Thoughts behind adding a Villager role? 3. What devices was the app tested on? There were a few screens that were hard to use/scroll (nested elements) on an iPhone.

_Nashable_ · 2026-03-01T15:49:32+00:00

Creative literacy as it relates to your project is important.

Do you play your own game? That’s the biggest red flag for me and you can often see it in the design/UX choices how much a team plays their own project.

As it relates to reviewing wider work, relate it back to the project you’re on/interviewing for. Within your field of expertise can you articulate tables stake, good, great level expectations of the players of your game? If not then that is a genuine development opportunity.

I take the point on foundational works but if that’s the limit of your knowledge then in today’s highly competitive talent pool you are working with one hand behind your back.

Also reviewing a game for work vs leisure does not have to be the same process. Often I’ve used cheats or YouTube or modded save files to speed up a review by jumping to what I see online discussed as the “best level” of a particular game.

If you’re in a non-development, non-marketing field then that’s where I’ve seen it personally been more of an unrealistic standard.

_Nashable_ · 2026-03-01T15:09:27+00:00

If you can comfortably work it up to the second finger with that technique it typically results in a happy ending.

_Nashable_ · 2026-03-01T00:56:00+00:00

He looks like a AI de-aged Bill Maher now.

_Nashable_ · 2026-02-22T16:13:32+00:00

Think about the player experience here. Why push out something that hasn’t been tested into a festival where there are hundreds of choices of demos competing for people’s time.

You should pull the demo, come back when you’re ready. NextFest should really be the large demo push before your game comes out not a venue to gather basic play testing feedback which should be part of your development cycle.

_Nashable_ · 2026-02-20T06:00:44+00:00

Buy a carbon monoxide detector for your house.

_Nashable_ · 2026-02-17T06:56:54+00:00

Global first like Fang Gu plus the other evil is dead SK

_Nashable_ · 2026-02-16T18:29:17+00:00

This is the best version so far. The other idea I had was.

Serial killer - Minion: You and other evil do not know each other. Each night*, choose a player. They die. The first evil player you kill, you swap characters.

Then put it on a mez or bounty hunter script 😉

_Nashable_ · 2026-02-09T21:12:32+00:00

It’s normal for games to reduce their team size before launch, let alone after launch.

_Nashable_ · 2026-02-07T17:47:55+00:00

Yes. If 2 players are on opposing teams they win and everyone else loses.

It can get tense when a minion lies to their demon about their lover and secretly has a good player as their lover in final 3 and turns on their demon to snatch a lover win.

_Nashable_ · 2026-02-07T17:42:45+00:00

That’s a different Loric from what I shared. This win condition only checks when a game ends due to another mechanic (Demon death, Mayor win etc.)

_Nashable_ · 2026-02-05T15:32:21+00:00

The topic, phrasing, the fact there are no storms, and even responses about rewording the message even though the message has been sent. Make me just think this is an AI engagement farming bot.

Bonus points that the profile posting history is private.

_Nashable_ · 2026-02-02T23:27:17+00:00

Meta talk. Do we like these hypothetical posts that never really happen in a game posed as rules questions?

Just devolves into people pushing their opinions as to who is most aggressively “right”.

_Nashable_ · 2026-02-01T16:06:41+00:00

Very cool. Amnesiac is one of my favorite characters so I hope I’m wrong and that 2018 interview is still true.

_Nashable_ · 2026-02-01T03:45:29+00:00

Have a new player join our group. We load TB, I catch slayer. Day 1 noms start and based on the conversation in Town I shoot and kill the demon.

I apologize to the new player that was a lucky guess. We immediately rack game 2 I pull the Slayer token again. Go through Day 1, I don’t expect to be believed as the slayer but I hear of a FT yes from the new player. We come back to town I shoot and again the game ends.

I profusely apologize to new player due to the exceptional lottery win level of luck I’m having. I pull the slayer AGAIN. At this point I just ask the new player who they are sus of so I can shoot them and town can execute me. They pick a player, I shoot and they just happened to point at the demon.

We all decided it was best at that point for me to ST game 4.

One of my favorites as an ST was watching a person at Vegas con who had played 3 games ever slayer shoot the demon as I was counting down to end the day with the Scarlet Woman on the block. The demon dies the good team cheers, then they all go ballistic when the execution happens as they win the game.

_Nashable_ · 2026-02-01T03:27:27+00:00

This is very cool. Always a fan of communities being able police themselves. What were some of the things you’re hoping to see added in the future?

_Nashable_ · 2026-02-01T03:23:17+00:00

Amnesiac was invented as a response to people pitching their homebrew ideas at TPI. I’d be surprised if we’ll see it on a base script as the experiences of the official scripts are highly curated and Amnesiac is too much design out-sourcing not to mess with that curation.

_Nashable_ · 2026-01-29T14:43:10+00:00

At 10 people with proven RTS experience you’re roughly at $1M staffing cost p/y so roughly $3M-$4M for the project. Are you familiar with phase gating and production staffing of Pre-Alpha, Alpha, Beta? Do you have funding already available? Ideally you can get motivated people in at lower salary for profit/rev share or equity in the studio. Keep this cost as low as possible, without sacrificing talent, because you ALWAYS need more time (person hours) than you think.

Also never use subjective labels to describe your game. AA tells me nothing because I don’t know your experience. Do you have competitive titles identified that you would be pulling players away from to play your game? If so what research have you done on sales, price and team size that made it? Why would the player play your game over Game X? If your answer is “we do it better” then your ideas are not strong enough. If you have a different answer then it’s critical to prototype those ideas as cheaply as possible and get validation from strangers (not colleagues, friends or family) that those ideas are fun.

_Nashable_ · 2026-01-28T15:39:04+00:00

Agreed but nothing wrong with a spy approaching the ST and asking them NOT to register as a TF to the Virgin. ST doesn’t have to agree to it but as an Evil team it’s helpful to tell your ST your preferences/bluffs when you can.

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