This past Tuesday was the San Francisco Postmortem. It’s a monthly gathering of game developers in the San Francisco Bay Area to talk shop and share a beer or two with your fellow developers. I go just about every month, but this past Tuesday was special as I was finally able to show Volatile to other game developers for the first time!
To be honest, I was nervous about showing Volatile off to other game designers. It’s like a director showing a room full of other directors a movie they’re still in the process of creating. I’m not in the film business, but I don’t think that’s something that happens often. Nevertheless, I worked through my jitters and showed it to as many people as I possibly could.
Max McGuire from Unknown Worlds
John Graham from Wolfire
Brian Cummings from Unknown Worlds
Group shot of others playing
All though I didn’t take as many pictures as I wanted, it was still a lot of fun talking about why certain game play decisions were made, features that need to be tweaked, and the overall progress. All of these guys know their craft so it was a great pleasure to get direct, hands on feedback from them.
If you developing your game in a vacuum you’re at risk to make some giant mistakes. Get your game out to some fresh eyes, no matter how nervous you are about it. Sure, it might sting a little to see the player fumble over a certain mechanic that you know is a work in progress, but you’ll be surprised at how much you didn’t notice because of how close to the project you are.
-Matt
