Snippets of Wisdom, GDC 2015 edition
My GDC is already over! :( Two days still gave me so much to chew on. Here are my favorite bits: Bring people onto your project that are 1-2 degrees separated from you. But remember that like hiring like can stifle creativity, so make your social connections diverse. Practice whack-a-mole game development. Everything, art, features, and business, all in the same list, all prioritized. Working down this cohesive list leads to a more rounded sense of polish and prevents you from falling into a rabbit hole. It is hard to reach a consensus when you have equal partnerships. Fairness is important, but so is being able to effectively make decisions. If you make a game for everyone, it's for no one. Give your partners ownership in the product. Without this they are more likely to lose interest or flake away. "Unpacking" Is what happens when a player figures out how they died just now and reverse engineers how to get better results. We don't learn through failure - we learn through the failures we understand. Make sure your players get that feedback, and players will feel immensely satisfied as they get better. Finding the right problem to solve is its own skill. If it's hard to build, it's likely hard to play. Put your hard work into making your concept clear. Marginalized people may not have the tools to tell their stories, so use your position to empower them to do so. If they don't want to tell it, that's okay. It's not your place to tell it for them. Don't design situations that your physics engine can't solve elegantly. A mismatch between what your screenshots convey and how your game plays is a recipe for low retention rates. The ideas that you've been letting stew for years? They're not as good as you think they are. Make them, so you can get them out. Create room for new ideas.













