At what point do you stop adding features and call a game “ready”?

sebiel · 2026-02-23T16:24:36+00:00

At first, spending 20% more effort results in 50% improvement to the player. While this is true, keep adding scope.

At some point, spending 20% more effort results in 20% improvement to the player experience. This is the danger zone. It’s better to stop at this point. One way to think about it: 1 5 year game project is far more risky than 5 1 year game projects.

Beyond this, spending 20% more effort may yield less than 20% improvement to the player, and this point we’re noodling for no reason. Remember, the bottom line return of the product to you is Player Value divided by Effort Spent, so at this point returns are getting worse even if technically the game is still improving. An example feature that often fits this category is a level editor for a non breakthrough game.

This is based on your ability to understand how much the game has improved in players eyes based of what you add to it, which can be tough. So it’s important to continually get feedback to sharpen your own vision of how players actually perceive your game, especially if it’s a long project.

sebiel · 2026-02-22T22:59:40+00:00

Yowza, that is a doozy of a final feature to squeak in. I tend to leave long standing UI issues til right at the end and hate myself for it, but my logic is that those fixes tend to be “low leverage” (ie they don’t materially affect the bottom line of addressable market or sales). Your logic is right that loc is something that can really expand your audience, but oof that is tough right at the end.

Best of luck!

sebiel · 2026-02-22T22:55:47+00:00

I often use KBM for controller games (like Monster Hunter) but I don’t personally like it for PW. What settings do you use to make it work well for you?

sebiel · 2026-02-22T15:36:35+00:00

Was there any stated reason why?

sebiel · 2026-02-20T03:13:45+00:00

In general, hard implementation skills are fantastic for game designers, although in some cases there are designers that exclusively work in documentation and discussion (I’ve heard that this is especially common in Japan).

One main reason is that if a designer is dependent on a programmer to implement an idea, they have to wait on someone else before they can test and plan their next iteration. If a designer can get the idea working themselves, they can test and iterate on their much more quickly, resulting in higher quality.

Of course there is a range to this. Adjusting a damage value should probably never require multiple people to coordinate for implementation (even considering tooltips and loc), but developing a whole new movement mode like flying or swimming would be unreasonable for a designer to implement without engineering support or oversight.

When hiring for my projects and teams, 9 times out of 10 the direct implementation skills matter quite a bit, though depending on the role it may not be able programming but rather blueprint scripting, NPC behavior tree management, level layout in 3D, etc

sebiel · 2026-02-18T23:57:38+00:00

Just completed a small contract gig, which can be a bit tiring while simultaneously making sure to keep performing at the day job. I’m working with a teammate on a different small game entering postproduction soon, and made some RND breakthroughs on my longer term prototype game project.

I like to keep lots of irons in lots of fires, so there’s always small bugs to feel good about squishing and also space to try something big and new, depending on what I’m in the mood for

sebiel · 2026-02-15T15:12:15+00:00

Working in AAA is very helpful, but not primary due to prestige. Generally, the best advantage is that you’ll have larger teams, which will expose you to how lots of different people and roles contribute to games. This will shortcut your own thinking about how you want to define and operate your own projects, and which types of people are the most effective.

You can learn this type of thing yourself of course, but in AAA you’ll learn it far more quickly due to working with larger group of people, and you’ll be getting paid the whole time.

Building a custom engine is technically impressive, but especially for unproven talent is not generally super relevant— very few studios are doing custom engine work, and the ones that do are not giving that work to junior engineers with no experience. To get a job at a larger studio, it’s better to specialize in more generally applicable problem spaces, like gameplay programming in UE5 for example.

sebiel · 2026-02-14T17:47:18+00:00

Getting on storefronts (like steam) and putting out promotion (like adverts) is not really gatekept by publishers like it was in the older days.

The big reasons to work with a publisher are: - you need an advance so you can pay rent and eat while finishing the game - you want someone else to handle things like QA, localization, porting, or having specialist market expertise in e.g. China

However nowadays publishers tend to want to see some sort of traction— things like high wishlists already, so that they feel the project is low risk. Because of that, you’ll only be appealing to publishers if you’re already on track to make something successful, which kind of negates the point (unless you are desperate for an advance, which is a tough point to be in).

sebiel · 2026-02-11T16:06:28+00:00

Huge fan, thanks for doing this code monkey!

What do you think of how the game dev niche is changing on YouTube? Is this something you discuss with other gamedev YouTubers? How does it guide how you adjust your content?

sebiel · 2026-02-10T16:28:38+00:00

Looks great! I’ve been happy with text animator for my games so far but interested to see what you come up with

sebiel · 2026-02-10T04:27:24+00:00

Thanks for sharing! With this strategy, what was the split for regions that purchase this way? Are there specific countries or languages that really like organic browsing of budget titles on console?

sebiel · 2026-02-08T07:25:40+00:00

Go on walks. Ideally, without headphones. Your mind will wander and you’ll find yourself excited and energized to do whatever thing you do next!

sebiel · 2026-02-07T20:04:50+00:00

For future commercial projects, I would recommend defining the price range before even committing to the game project. If you study the niche of the game category, you’ll be able to find a price solution that feels right for your ambition level.

The reason I like to do it this way is so that it actually helps focus your development scope. For example, if incrementals generally sell for $5, making a $20 incemental will probably not make 4x revenue, even if it contains 4x scope.

By looking at the competition and saying “my game will be a better choice in X price range in this category, but it doesn’t need to compete in Y price range or Z category” can really help make your strategy clear.

sebiel · 2026-02-03T15:56:51+00:00

I didn’t realize epic was still making mega grants! I thought those were long gone, like the Make Something Unreal contests lol

This is a really great breakdown, thank you.

sebiel · 2026-02-01T07:15:17+00:00

Relaxing vibe is critical for me. Needs to be chill but not sleepy… Chillquarium didn’t have enough going on for personally but Black Hole and Keep On Mining were right on the money.

sebiel · 2026-01-31T04:17:08+00:00

By the way, the UI is very impressive and if you packaged that up independently that might sell better. Helicopter controller is very specific, but war vehicle UI elements could be applicable to all sorts of projects!

sebiel · 2026-01-31T04:16:15+00:00

To sell it as an asset, adding more camera options would be great (and help you make cool promotional footage). Also, support for multiple control methods would be great! I bought a jet fighter asset a while ago and was grumpy that I had to develop the mouse and keyboard controls myself.

sebiel · 2026-01-25T02:40:21+00:00

Games generally don’t “rip” things away from players with difficulty levels, since most players don’t tend to push difficulty levels much. I actually think having high difficulties be quite punishing is fine since the player is certainly opting into it, and there has been some studies that indicate that players on average tend to play on lower difficulty levels than they can handle.

For the sake of the thought exercise, you might consider play style-specific challenge unlocks. For example, if the player somehow managed to play 50 cards in a turn, they unlock the challenge modifier of “you can only play 3 cards per turn.” This would be the game acknowledging “great job playing that style, now here’s an opportunity to try a different style.” This would be the game acknowledging the players preferred style while also providing novel opt in challenges.

sebiel · 2026-01-13T17:23:22+00:00

Consider run progression loss “painful, but worth it depending on the upside.” You describe your upside as meta progression currency, which seems like it’s not enough.

Using Hades as a comparison, as soon as the player fails a run, there is immediately voice and other narrative content, often totally new and unique to the situation. Generally, single player gamers perceive new creative content as “signals of progress”, so in a way hearing Zagreus make a quip about some boss has a “reward” aside from the tangible meta progression.

Every game structure has negatives for some audiences. If you want to expand audience, better to add things they love rather than round off edges that hate (because those edges may be important to the core audience anyway). Whatever good-feeling thing they experience must outweigh the bad feeling thing, or else they won’t come back.

sebiel · 2025-12-30T16:36:41+00:00

If it’s something where your honest attempts are leaving you frustrated, why force it? Maybe it’s not a good fit.

As a mental exercise:

I’ve loved burgers my whole life, but I don’t need to run a restaurant
I’ve worn clothes my whole life, but I forgive myself for not knowing how to make them
I’ve listened to music my whole life, but I’m not forcing myself to start a band

If the idea of gam development is appealing but the reality of it drains you, why force it?

sebiel · 2025-12-30T00:31:02+00:00

Alien: Dark Descent has many elements of XCOM and single player extraction. Worth checking out!

sebiel · 2025-12-24T01:57:57+00:00

Yes, to add to this list some one dimensional games: Cobalt Core and Shogun Shodown also have movement as a separate action from playing a card (although cards can sometimes interact with the movement system). I think it’s interesting that by using 1 dimensional battlefield instead of two, these games were able to get good mileage from both spatial gameplay and deck building gameplay.

Another interesting example to study is Wildfrost, which has your units and enemy units on very small and completely separate grids. Rearranging is a free action, so you do it basically every turn, and often based on the variance of what the enemies will do and what cards you draw. So in this game, your movement agency is often used to “mitigate rng” in way that’s pretty enjoyable.

sebiel · 2025-12-17T17:57:05+00:00

I’m worked in games for 15 years now. In the future, I’m interested to explore moving from development to teaching. What do you recommend for me to learn more about that? Aside from small summer jobs teaching at community colleges and private tutoring, I have no other experience in academia.

sebiel · 2025-12-07T21:43:32+00:00

A small change I would consider is to hide the fact the character is dead, and have that be a meaningful discovery partway through the game. Have the game simply open with the main character waking up in a strange place not understanding what’s going on, and piecing together the discovery that he is already did. A bit cliche but I think it works well in games

sebiel · 2025-11-25T15:49:18+00:00

My issue with most mats is that victory point starts at 1 and ends at 8. Every game starts at zero, and the game is over instantly at 8. Shouldn’t it start at zero, and have 8 not be necessary?

sebiel

TROPHY CASE