Good Tips for Finishing game off

hey all,

What have you learn from finishing game and what are your Good Tips for Finishing game off.


cheers

User testing.
You can't possibly call your game finished if no-one else's played it as you can guarantee that first contact with the public will bring a slew of issues/bugs you knew nothing about.

Gfk's old advice. Keep a to do list. Finish every night on something easy, so when you wake up in the morning, you can ease yourself back into it. Break down the tasks of the game into pseudo code, it makes it easier to find where you are going.

Might take that advice one of these days :D

I concur with GfK. Also just start doing something, anything work related and you'll get into it, but hell yeahif you've left yourself something easy and fun, even better.

Believe that what you're working on will be a success, don't think about anything else other than success.

Is he asking how to not run out of steam before finishing -or what final things need to be done to finish a game?

Is he asking how to not run out of steam before finishing -or what final things need to be done to finish a game?

either as any good tips will do :)

Just keep in mind that the first 80% of the game will use 95% of your time -- and the last 20% will use the other 95%. ;-)

Tips:
-When you think its finished, it isnt.
-Never test it yourself except for 'functionality' reasons, never 'fun' test your own game.
-If something vexes you try and get on with something else that needs doing while posting for solutions/ideas.
-Keep a good todo/done list. (I use my HP Jornada for this, so i can whip it out and add stuff if i suddenly think of something when not at pc)
-Respond to negative critique even it its raw and harsh, its all good feedback.
-dont get moody with those that criticise unless its mindless trolls responding with comments like "this is complete sh.t" and no reason given as to why.

hmm.. that would differ from person to person. 'Eat your own dog food' it's called, iirc. If the programmer in question is also a hardcore gamer, then the programmer ought to know the goods and bads of gaming in general.

Here's some useful links, some of these proved very popular when I posted them on this forum before. Hope you find them useful:

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/where-do-you-learn-patience/

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/screens-screens-and-more-screens/

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/what-makes-people-successful/

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/how-do-you-know-when-something-is-finished/

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/rocky-knows-the-score/

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/best-tip-for-game-production/

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/do-you-set-milestones/

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/ive-finished-my-game-now-what/

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/an-approximate-guide-to-selling-indie-games/

I test my games for fun. I feel I'm able to look at the relatively objectively. One key thing is to play your game over and over so that you spot problems and things that could be tidied up. Certainly don't view it with rose tinted spectacles, in fact view it with a very critical eye and improve anything which is sub-standard.

However, I guess the real point taht was bing made was get other people to test it for fun, and I 100% agree on this. Also get your mum to test it and see if she gets it or is floundering around uselessly.

True. However i was more refering to final product testing. I was just quoting that golden rule from college that noone should do final testing on their own programs (not just games).

Its usually stupid little things that are so obvious or invisible to you as you have spent months living with the product, but someone new may be completely bewildered (eg, controls, rules etc). Also other people may have a different style of playing to you and may find bugs that you never would as it has been designed around your own logical idea of how things should progress in the game.

Don't start another project!

This is my problem, too many ideas, keep starting more and more things which leaves me with 100s of 'ideas' / 'tech demos'

My girlfriends useful for this. She's one of these players who obsessively explores every part of a level, clicking on every object to see if it does anything.

She gets very angry if games don't let her do what she expects every game to do (i.e. skipping cut scenes or changing the control keys.)

this is good one

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/design/features/makegames/default.asp